Falwell Jr. resigns from Liberty
Head of evangelical university steps down amid conflicting claims his wife had an extramarital affair.
RICHMOND, Va. — Jerry Falwell Jr. announced his resignation Tuesday as head of evangelical Liberty University amid conflicting claims about a sexual relationship his wife had with a business partner.
Falwell’s exit marks a precipitous fall from power for one of the country’s most visible evangelical leaders and ardent supporters of President Donald Trump. The Lynchburg, Virginia, university was founded in 1971 by Falwell’s late father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.
Falwell confirmed his decision to resign in an interview with The Associated Press.
According to the school, Falwell initially offered to resign Monday, hours after the Reuters news agency published an interview with a man who said that he had a yearslong sexual relationship with Becki Falwell and that Jerry Falwell participated in some of the liaisons as a voyeur. Falwell later reversed course, and began telling news outlets he had no intention of leaving. Then he changed direction again.
“That’s the only reason I resigned: because I don’t want something my wife did to harm the school I’ve spent my whole life building,” he said in a phone interview. “I never broke a single rule that applies to staff members at Liberty, which I was. So I want everybody to know that.”
The university confirmed in a statement that its board had accepted Falwell’s resignation as president, chancellor and board member. All were effective immediately, the statement said.
Becki Falwell also spoke with the AP, saying she and her husband are “more in love than ever.”
“We have the strongest relationship and Jerry is the most forgiving person I’ve ever met,” she said. “It’s a shame that Christians can’t give us the same forgiveness that Christ gave us.”
Falwell had been on leave since earlier this month after alumni and others recoiled at a photo he posted on social media The image showed him with his pants unzipped, stomach exposed and arm high around the waist of his wife’s pregnant assistant, who also had her pants unzipped and stomach exposed. Falwell has said the photo was taken at a costume party during a family vacation.
The board “put me on leave for showing my belly in a picture and my contract doesn’t allow that,” he said Tuesday. He later added, “I’m 58 years old, and I think there’s something else in the cards for me.”
The latest controversy began to unfold late Sunday, when The Washington Examiner published a statement from Falwell disclosing that his wife had an extramarital affair. The statement, later shared with the AP, said the man involved had been threatening to reveal the relationship “to deliberately embarrass my wife, family, and Liberty University unless we agreed to pay him substantial monies.”
Falwell said he was seeking mental health counseling after dealing with fallout from the affair, which he said he had no role in. “Over the course of the last few months we have decided the only way to stop this predatory behavior is to go public,” the statement said.
On Monday, Reuters published Giancarlo Granda’s account of the relationship, including what the news agency said was an audio recording of a phone call between the Falwells and Granda.
The tale of Granda’s ties to the family has become known as the “pool boy” story. Granda and the Falwells met in 2012 while he worked as a pool attendant in Miami.
Granda, now 29, took on partial ownership of a hostel in Miami’s partyfriendly South Beach neighborhood with members of the Falwell family, according to court documents. The purchase of the property was a surprise move in itself for the president of a conservative evangelical university. Granda’s later involvement sparked legal jostling that later involved Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer.
Granda did not return a phone call from the AP Tuesday.