Oh what a week it’s been for Jerry Falwell Jr., culminating in the late-Friday development (you know, when the embarrassing news gets swept under the rug) that he’s agreed to take “an indefinite leave of absence” as the president of Liberty University.
Falwell Jr.’s reputation as a party boy living a decidedly non-Christian lifestyle, despite heading the evangelical college in Lynchburg, Virginia, finally caught up to him when he was caught quite literally with his pants down.
Related: Jerry Falwell Jr. plays while gay students suffer under his university’s conversion “therapy”
On Monday, Falwell Jr. inexplicably posted a photo of himself with a woman who is not his wife, both with their pants undone, partying on a yacht.
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The caption read: “More vacation shots. Lot of good friends visited us on the yacht. I promise that’s just black water in my glass. It was a prop only.”
Within minutes, Falwell Jr. deleted the image. But not before someone captured a screenshot of it, ensuring its internet immortality.
Falwell Jr. later apologized, explaining it was just a “costume party” and “in good fun.” And sure, it may have been both of those things for someone not trying to maintain a public facade of virtuous (not to mention virulently homophobic) Christianity.
Related: Now there’s video of Jerry Falwell Jr. with his pants unzipped and partying with shirtless guys
The photo–and subsequent video–were apparently too much for the Liberty Board of Trustees, who announced:
“The Executive Committee of Liberty University’s Board of Trustees, acting on behalf of the full Board, met today and requested that Jerry Falwell, Jr. take an indefinite leave of absence from his roles as President and Chancellor of Liberty University, to which he has agreed, effective immediately.”
Falwell Jr. is the son of the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, the ultra-conservative televangelist who founded the university.
Falwell Jr. was also one of the first evangelical higher-ups to endorse Donald Trump during his bid for the 2016 presidential nomination.
We’ve no doubt, like Jeffrey Epstein cohort Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump “wishes him well” during this trying time.
Bob LaBlah
He’s using the Pat Boone technique of how to get the hell away from religious fanatics that you can no longer stand being around now that you have finally figured out what they were and stood for.
Pat Boone walked out on a Grammy Awards Show stage to present an award wearing leather from head to toe. But it look as it was intended to look, VERY gay, or shall we say that type of dress started whispers amongst the ignorant, the followers of the Moral Majority. They got rid of him and he, Boone, stopped dead short of publicly thanking them. It looks like Junior is vying for the same thing. These incidents are no longer looking like slips and to me they never did.
Vince
I think you got Pat Boone mixed up. I remember him coming out to protest for Chik Fil Le about 5 years ago. The protest was over religious freedom but mostly just hate for gays.
trsxyz
I remember Pat Boone’s “leather” outfit stunt. (Actually, it was at the American Music Awards and not the Grammys…) But I don’t remember him being exiled from the religious right because of it. In fact a quick Internet search indicates that Mr. Boone is still heavily involved with right-wing politics & religion, and that he is a Trump supporter.
Bob LaBlah
@trsxyz……(are you Polish?). I advise you go back and check again as to why he left the Moral Majority or better yet why they got rid of him. His politics did NOT change but he did what he set out to do, get away from Falwell and company. Your politics do not have to change just because you joined the wrong group.
@Vince……..You must not have done a search. I get tired of google sometimes too and when I do I go to Bing.com and search there. But it is online as well as pictures. As a matter of fact not only is it on youtube but I there is also a clip of him in the same outfit and he is appearing on Leno. Thanks to people like tr…..z we can no longer post videos but its there.
rocknstan
Precisely! Excellent analysis.
I would love to know, too, what corporate sources are keeping such an anachronistic school alive in 2020.
I suppose that Jr. is independently wealthy as a result of papa’s guile and graft.
Cam
Pat Boone dressed that way because he came out with a CD where he did his crooner versions of all of these heavy metal songs. The outfit was a joke, and it was an attempt to revive his career and get some sales.
Fallwell is in no way trying to break from these folks, he has been incredibly outspoken supporting bigotry, Trump etc.. as recently as a few weeks ago.
Showrunner
This photo is what took him down? After years of potentially embezzling money and lude activity towards young men on his campus. This fat photo and a drunken interview is what took him down. Wow, these people really don’t care.
Virpilosus
Showrunner: WELL SAID. and I agree. Falwell’s is and HAS BEEN appallingly awful for a long time. Crickets from the right until…this. Gimme a break.
My2CentsWorth
Yes Vince, he did Pat Boone mixed up. Queerty did an article on Pat Boone in the support of the chicken place. Apparently Pat Boone was with “Reverend” Jesse Lee Peterson. If looks can indicate the bad nature of people the photo of Peterson that I found was right on. I would not trust that guy in anything, especially involving money just by the impression gained from the photo.
In an article (maybe the Queerty one) that I read, Pat Boone said that some of his friends were “gay”. Any decent person wanting to be friends with someone who supports hates is incomprehensible to me. I have trouble comprehending why some of the rich billionaires and other LGBTQ – as well as Blacks and other minorities – supporting folks like Trump.
tjack47
No matter, he will be involved behind the scenes, and his replacement will be as bad a person or even worse. Liberty U. and Franklin Graham will always hate with love in their hearts. Hate the sin, love the sinner. I couldn’t care less about religious organizations nor people, unless they try to shove their religion down my atheist throat. If they stand in the way of our equal rights and civil liberties. Then we must fight like their fictitious hell.
GayEGO
Naughty naughty! Jerry got caught! I guess he won’t Feelwell now!
boymikefl
If there was a hell, he & his father would be the greeters at the door. They stole Jim & Tammy’s Heritage USA. Better yet. They’re both the devil. How ’bout that?
Creamsicle
On top of violating his own school’s code of ethics (or whatever they call their 18th century morality policing) it may have been a real bad look to be partying on a yacht with your significantly younger employees after laying off a bunch of staff and faculty.
Lots of schools are laying off staff. I got laid off from the for-profit grad institute I had been working at for 2.5 years. They did it quietly and tried to make the remaining staff keep quiet about services being cut despite keeping tuition VERY high.
James
JERRY FALWELL IS EVIL. I HOPE HE ROTS IN HELL FOR TORTURING GAY PEOPLE. SICK CREEP. HIS UGLY FATHER IS ALREADY IN HELL.
Bubbleandsqueal
Jerry will be taking this opportunity to spend time to reflect and rehabilitate . . . with the Pool Boy!
DCFarmboy
Before everyone judges, I think you need to ask, “Who of us hasn’t been out on a boat with our pants upzipped while feeling up some hottie?”
Kevan1
The video seems to be a white Trash party. Making fun of some of his followers.
Cam
I wonder if the person who took the picture posted it. It seems odd that even a drunk Fallwell would “accidentally” post it.
My favorite part were his attempts to explain it. First he said she was pregnant and that’s why her pants were open and he did it as a joke because hers were. Except her pants don’t look too tight to button, then he tried to say that he had on old jeans that didn’t fit right, Yeahhhhh, because SO many people go to a party in pants you can’t button.
What’s really telling is that if he DID post the picture, he was more concerned about people thinking he had alcohol, than he was about people seeing him with a strange woman with his pants unzipped.
My2CentsWorth
“It seems odd that even a drunk Fallwell would “accidentally” post it” could not be true. The version of Christianity that he subscribes to forbids drinking booze, fornication except with wife (and maybe only for reproduction) or doing any of the other ‘worldly’ things. I assumed that the photo of him in a dance club was actually a picture of someone posing as Jerry Falwell, Jr.. Surely, we must be jumping to conclusion that his pool maintenance fellow was more to him than just cleaning the pool. Or maybe it was his workout coach.
Anyway, I have the wrong outlook on how religious leader should live their lives. For some odd reason I always felt that they should live a chaste (except with wives) life on a very modest scale. Especially, if they depend upon donations from people of modest means. The Falwells and other of their kind seem to live a life style that would be very familar with millionaires.
Maybe the verse in the Bible telling someone to give away their wealth and become a believer was only for the common folks. Not the leaders.