Jerry Falwell Jr.
Jerry Lamon Falwell Jr. is an American evangelical attorney and former academic administrator. Starting with his 2007 appointment upon the death of his father, televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell, Falwell served as the president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, until resigning in August 2020 amid a sex scandal.
Early life and education
Jerry Falwell Jr. was born on June 17, 1962, the eldest son of Jerry Sr. and Macel Falwell. He attended private schools in the Lynchburg area, including Lynchburg Christian Academy, from where he graduated in 1980. He then attended Liberty University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in history and religious studies in 1984, and the University of Virginia School of Law, where he obtained a Juris Doctor in 1987.Career
From 1987 until 2007, Falwell served in private practice in Virginia and as the lawyer for Liberty University and its related organizations. He joined the Board of Trustees of the university in 2000.2007–2020: Liberty University
As part of a succession plan the elder Falwell laid out before his death, Jerry Jr. was to be entrusted with Liberty University while Jerry Sr.'s other son, Jonathan Falwell, inherited the ministry at Thomas Road Baptist Church. The decisions were rooted in each's personality: Jerry Jr. had aggressive business instincts, and Jonathan was more charismatic and interested in ministry. This succession plan took effect when Jerry Sr. died in 2007.Under Falwell Jr., Liberty University came under scrutiny for its alleged authoritarian control over employees and students, nepotism toward Falwell family-owned businesses in the school's investments, and increasing influence of Falwell's wife Becki in school affairs. Beginning in 2001, Falwell had established two companies for the purpose of making property deals with Liberty-affiliated nonprofits, and his two sons and their wives were on Liberty's payroll. A 2019 Politico article described the university as a "dictatorship" in which Falwell ruled through fear; it also reported that the university had sold merchandise promoting Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and that Falwell Jr. had crude discussions about his sex life at work and had shown other Liberty employees provocative photos of his wife. Falwell's leadership also came under fire in a letter signed by members of Congress, Andy Levin and Jamie Raskin, to Betsy DeVos, which claimed that Falwell personally blocked students from writing student columns critical of Trump. A Reuters investigation, published in August 2019, alleged that Falwell signed a real estate deal in 2016 that transferred the university's sports facilities to his personal trainer, who did not put down any money for the deal. The publication reported that instead, Liberty immediately paid almost $650,000 to the trainer, who now owned the property, to lease the property for nine years.
On August 7, 2020, Falwell took an indefinite leave of absence from his positions at Liberty University following controversy around a photo he had posted on social media, which showed him with his pants unzipped and his arm around the waist of a woman whose shorts were similarly unzipped. The photo was taken at a theme party where they dressed as characters from the raunchy Canadian television sitcom Trailer Park Boys. On August 23, Falwell made a public statement that his wife had had an affair and that they had been targets of blackmail. The next day Reuters published a story in which the man with whom Falwell's wife had an affair claimed that Falwell regularly watched him engaging in sexual activities with Falwell's wife. Later in the day, on August 24, Falwell agreed to resign from Liberty University. Falwell immediately denied this, while the university claimed that negotiations were ongoing. On August 25, both Falwell and Liberty University confirmed that he had resigned. Because he left his position without a formal accusation or admission of wrongdoing, Falwell was reportedly entitled to a $10.5million severance package.
After his departure, Liberty opened an investigation into his past personal entanglement in the school's finances and real estate. Transactions that personally benefit an individual could jeopardize Liberty's tax-exempt status. In October 2020, Falwell sued Liberty University for damaging his reputation, but in December 2020 dropped the lawsuit.
On April 15, 2021, Liberty University sued Falwell for $40 million in damages for breach of contract and violation of fiduciary duty. In November 2021, Falwell revived his defamation lawsuit against Liberty University. Falwell has also sued the University in an attempt to receive $8.5 million in retirement funds, claiming that he met every requirement agreed upon in the Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan to receive payment. He would go on to sue the school again for the alleged exploitation of the trademark and image of his father, Jerry Falwell Sr., without consulting the Falwell family or "authorization of the Dr. Jerry L. Falwell Family Trust." In 2024, Liberty University was ordered to pay Falwell $15.3 million in a settlement concerning his resignation.
Possible governmental positions
In November 2016, Falwell said that President-elect Donald Trump had offered him the position of United States secretary of education, but that he had turned down the offer citing personal reasons and because he did not want to leave Liberty University for more than two years. In January 2017, Falwell said that he had been asked by President Trump to head a task force on reforms for the United States Department of Education. In June 2017, Falwell confirmed to the Chronicle of Higher Education that he would be one of 15 college presidents participating in the task force. The task force was never formed.Controversies
2019 sex scandal
In 2019, Reuters reported that Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor: to help get rid of photos described by Cohen as being the kind that would typically be kept "between husband and wife." At least three of the photos were later discovered to be of Falwell's wife.According to Brandon Ambrosino, writing in Politico in 2019:
Longtime Liberty officials close to Falwell told me the university president has shown or texted his male confidants – including at least one employee who worked for him at Liberty – photos of his wife in provocative and sexual poses.
At Liberty, Falwell is "very, very vocal" about his "sex life," in the words of one Liberty official – a characterization multiple current and former university officials and employees interviewed for this story support. In a car ride about a decade ago with a senior university official who has since left Liberty, "all he wanted to talk about was how he would nail his wife, how she couldn't handle , and stuff of that sort," this former official recalled. Falwell did not respond to questions about this incident.
2020–2021 sex scandal
In March 2012, Falwell and his wife and children stayed at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach luxury hotel, where Falwell's wife met and became friends with Giancarlo Granda, a twenty year old man who worked there as a pool attendant. The Falwells financially backed their son, Jerry "Trey" Falwell III, and Granda in a 2013 purchase of a South Beach hostel called the Alton Hostel, which operates under the name the Miami Hostel. A lawsuit was filed against the Falwells and the man in 2015, dismissed, and then refiled in August 2017. The plaintiffs, a man and his son, claimed they had helped to think of the hostel business idea but had then been wrongfully left out of the venture.In May 2020, after Virginia governor Ralph Northam implemented a mask mandate amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Falwell criticized the mandate and tweeted a picture of a custom mask with Northam wearing blackface. Falwell apologized for the tweet in early June after being widely criticized by African-American alumni for being insensitive to the black community.
In late August, Reuters contacted Falwell and his wife with their initial reporting on his wife's alleged affair with the pool attendant they had met in 2012. Shortly after, on August 23, 2020, Falwell announced in a public statement that his wife had an "improper relationship" several years earlier with a man who later threatened to reveal the affair "unless we agreed to pay him substantial monies". On August 24, Reuters published their report that the man was the pool attendant with whom Falwell had invested in the hostel. The man, now 29 years old, said he began a sexual relationship with the Falwells when he was 20. He claimed that the affair started the same month he met the couple, in March 2012, and continued into 2018. He claimed to have had "frequent" sexual encounters with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell Jr. looked on, sometimes in the same room and sometimes remotely via camera. The man shared audiotape, emails, and texts with Reuters as evidence for the veracity of his assertions about the relationship.
Later in the day on August 24, it was reported that Falwell had agreed to resign from Liberty University, though Falwell denied the report. An anonymous university official told The Washington Post that there had been a delay in negotiations. On August 25, Falwell confirmed that he had resigned.
In October 2020, Falwell sued Liberty University for damaging his reputation, but in December 2020 dropped the lawsuit. On April 15, 2021, Liberty University sued him for $40 million for breach of contract and fiduciary duty. The suit also alleged that Falwell failed to disclose to the university's board of trustees his scandalous affair and "personal impairment by alcohol". In 2024, Liberty University was ordered to pay Falwell $15.3 million in a settlement concerning his resignation.