[1] During her career Messner was noted for her eccentric and glamorous persona, as well as for moral views that diverged from those of many mainstream evangelists, particularly her advocacy for LGBT persons and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

[5] Jim Bakker was indicted, convicted, and imprisoned on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989, resulting in the dissolution of The PTL Club.

The next year, they moved to South Carolina, where they began their ministry together, initially traveling around the United States; Jim preached, while Tammy Faye sang songs and played the accordion.

[11] Jim and Tammy Faye co-founded The PTL Club (Praise The Lord) in 1974, a televangelist Christian news program that they initially hosted in an abandoned furniture store in Charlotte.

[11] The series mixed "glitzy entertainment with down-home family values" and preached a "'prosperity gospel' which put a divine seal of approval on both the growing affluence of American evangelicals and the showy lifestyles of their television ministers.

[11] She was also noted for her candid discussion of topics considered taboo amongst many of her Evangelist peers, ranging from penile implants to acceptance and compassion for the LGBT community.

[12] During the program, Tammy Faye addressed her viewership, saying: "How sad that we as Christians, who are to be the salt of the earth, we who are supposed to be able to love everyone, are afraid so badly of an AIDS patient that we will not go up and put our arm around them and tell them that we care.

[14] Bakker's friend, the Reverend Mel White, commented on her presence on The PTL Club: Her fans were people who grew up in a very fundamentalist tradition, not being able to wear make-up, or dance, or go out in public.

[17] The revelations invited scrutiny of the Bakkers, and charges made about their opulent lives, including media reports of an air-conditioned doghouse at their Tega Cay, South Carolina, lakefront parsonage as well as gold-plated bathroom fixtures, dominated newscasts in the 1980s.

When asked about her income, Tammy Faye told reporters in 1986: "We don't get what Johnny Carson makes, and we work a lot harder than him.

In 1992, while Jim was in prison, Tammy Faye filed for divorce, saying in a letter to the New Covenant Church in Orlando, Florida: "For years I have been pretending that everything is all right, when in fact I hurt all the time...

[22] Roe, who had a contracting business, Messner Enterprises in Andover, Kansas, had built much of Heritage USA as well as many large churches and had been a family friend to the Bakkers throughout the PTL years.

[23] Roe was the one who produced the money for the $265,000 payment to Hahn, later billing PTL for work never completed on the Jerusalem Amphitheater at Heritage USA.

[9] With her first husband fresh out of jail and her current partner now serving his sentence, Tammy Faye was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, and she re-entered the public eye in a series of books, movies, and television appearances.

[27] She appeared twice on The Drew Carey Show in 1996 and 1999, playing the mother of character Mimi Bobeck (Kathy Kinney), who was also known for wearing excessive amounts of makeup.

[13][32] She was benevolently referred to as "the ultimate drag queen,"[33] and said in her last interview with Larry King that, "When I went – when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that.

The show chronicled a twelve-day period wherein she, Ron Jeremy, Vanilla Ice, Traci Bingham, Erik Estrada, and Trishelle Cannatella lived together in a Los Angeles house and were assigned various tasks and activities.

[36] At the end of the show, Messner said she thought of Vanilla Ice and Trishelle Cannatella as her children and could relate to them deeply because she had similar feelings and problems when she was their age.

[38] In March 2004, Messner made an appearance on Larry King Live and announced that she had inoperable lung cancer and would soon begin chemotherapy.

[44] The story was reported on NBC's The Today Show, and a feature in which fans and well-wishers could post get-well messages to Tammy was added to her website.

[40] Two days later, on July 20, 2007, Messner died at her home in Loch Lloyd, near Kansas City, Missouri, after an eleven-year bout with cancer.

[50] In June 2006, a stage musical titled The Gospel According to Tammy Faye opened at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and was subsequently developed as a larger professional production.

Industry readings presented by the Columbia Gorge Repertory Company were held at the Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2007, the cast including Tony nominee Sally Mayes and veteran Broadway performers William Youmans, Ken Land, Julie Foldesi, James T. Lane and Heather Parcells.

[55] A musical about the life of BeBe Winans, Born for This, debuted on June 25, 2018, at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts.

Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker appear as supporting characters who give BeBe and his sister CeCe their first big break as singers on The PTL Club.