Robert Tilton (born June 7, 1946) is an American televangelist and the former pastor of the Word of Faith Family Church in Farmers Branch, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.

"[2] When ABC's Primetime Live raised questions about Tilton's fundraising practices, a series of investigations into the ministry were initiated, and Success-N-Life was taken off the air.

According to his autobiographical materials, Tilton had a conversion experience to evangelical Christianity the following year[5] and began his ministry in 1974, taking his family on the road to, in his words, "preach this gospel of Jesus.

Tilton was particularly influenced by Dave Del Dotto, a real estate promoter who hosted hour-long infomercials showing his glamorous life in Hawaii, as well as on-camera testimonials lauding his "get rich quick" books.

[7] Upon his return from Hawaii in 1981, Tilton, with the help of a US$1.3 million loan from Dallas banker Herman Beebe,[2] revamped Daystar into an hour-long "religious infomercial" with the title Success-N-Life.

Curious about the pervasiveness of the problem, the Trinity Foundation got on the mailing lists of several televangelists, including Tilton, and started keeping records of the many types of solicitations they received almost daily from various ministries.

Former Coca-Cola executive Harry Guetzlaff came to Trinity after he had been turned away from Tilton's church when he found himself on hard times following a divorce.

Guetzlaff joined Anthony in the task of gathering details on Tilton's operation and later did much of the legwork in uncovering the paper trail for the ABC News investigation.

[15] In a November 21, 1991, promotional appearance on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, Diane Sawyer said that she had incidentally watched several televangelist programs, including Success-N-Life, and was both "fascinated" and "disturbed" by them.

Stressing the public's sensitivity to reporters questioning religion, Sawyer said that she spoke with other journalists, and then eventually to ABC producers, who then decided to conduct their own investigation into Grant, Lea, and Tilton.

After comparing their accumulated notes, data and details, the two groups decided to pool their efforts and began planning the undercover portion of the story.

The director of Response Media, Jim Moore, described for Anthony and the hidden cameras (concealed in the undercover Primetime Live producers' glasses and handbags) many techniques used by Tilton to raise funds for his ministry.

"You never have to touch it", Moore added in response to a clarification question from Anthony about dealing with the gimmick objects sent to the potential donors in the mails.

Over the next thirty days, Trinity's "garbologists", as Anthony dubbed them,[15] found tens of thousands of discarded prayer requests, bank statements, computer printouts containing the coding for how Tilton's "personalized" letters were generated, and more, all of which were shown in detail on the Tilton segment within the Primetime Live broadcast, titled "The Apple of God's Eye".

[2] In a follow-up broadcast on November 28, 1991, Sawyer said that Trinity and Primetime Live assistants found prayer requests in bank dumpsters on fourteen separate occasions in a thirty day period.

[17] Tilton vehemently denied the allegations and took to the airwaves on November 22, on a special episode of Success-N-Life entitled "Primetime Lies", to air his side of the story.

Tilton also claimed that he needed plastic surgery to repair capillary damage to his lower eyelids from ink that seeped into his skin from the prayer requests.

[18] After Trinity members spent weeks poring over the details of the documents they and ABC had uncovered, sorting and scrutinizing each prayer request, bank statement, and computer printout dealing with the codes Tilton's banks and legal staff used when categorizing the returned items, Anthony called a press conference in December 1991 to present what he described as Tilton's "Wheel of Fortune", using a large display covered in actual prayer requests, copies of receipts for document disposition, and other information which demonstrated what happened to money and prayer requests which the average viewer of Tilton's television program sent him.

Tilton claimed that the individuals conspired to violate his First Amendment rights under a federal statute designed to protect black citizens from the Ku Klux Klan.

[citation needed] The decline of Success-N-Life also led to the end of Tilton's 25-year marriage to his wife Marte, who had been administrative head of the Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center, in 1993.

[19] Marte intervened in Tilton's second divorce from Leigh Valentine, who had asked the court to include the church and all its assets as community property in the proceedings.

After moving to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1996, Tilton returned to the airwaves in 1997 with a new version of Success-N-Life, buying airtime on independent television stations primarily serving inner city areas.

[29] However, Tilton dropped the Tulsa address in late 2007 and used a Miami post office box to receive responses to his fundraising mailings.

In January 2014, he was holding services at the Courtyard Marriott in Culver City, California, while having donations again sent to a post office box in Tulsa.

[31] Consequently, Tilton, along with Stewart and Peter Popoff, received "criticism from those who say that preachers with a long trail of disillusioned followers have no place on a network that holds itself out as a model of entrepreneurship for the black community.

In a 2003 interview published in the Tulsa World, Anthony estimated that with none of the Word of Faith Family Church overhead and with television production costs at a fraction of the original Success-N-Life program, Tilton's current organization was likely grossing more than $24 million per year tax-free.

After the hosts of The Mark & Brian Show, a radio program in Los Angeles, mentioned the video on the air, they saw the market potential and began selling official copies.

[19] The song "I Know" on the Barenaked Ladies' 1996 album Born on a Pirate Ship includes the lines: "If a hundred monkeys each could get their own show / perhaps one day a chimp might say," followed by a sample of Tilton saying, "and you have faith!

Bruce Prichard, who portrayed Brother Love in the WWE, has stated that the character was largely based on Tilton's way of speaking.

The comedian and satirist John Oliver criticized Tilton's televangelism ministry as fraudulent on his nationwide television program Last Week Tonight on August 17, 2015.