Jerry Falwell Jr.’s future at Liberty University is in doubt

The leadership of Jerry Falwell Jr., one of the most prominent evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump, appeared to be nearing an end at Liberty University after a report emerged Monday of sexual indiscretions involving Falwell, his wife and a pool attendant.

Top officials at Liberty, which Falwell helped build into a hugely influential, $1.6 billion center of evangelical power, were seeking to finalize the terms of Falwell’s departure as the university’s president and chancellor.

The situation was confusing Monday night, with a school spokesman telling news organizations that Falwell had resigned, Falwell denying that report, and an official with knowledge of the behind-the-scenes drama asserting that the terms were still being negotiated.

“Falwell has not yet resigned but he’s in negotiations with the school over his future,” said a person who was in touch with key players in the negotiations Monday but was not authorized to speak on the record.

On Monday evening, Falwell told Virginia Business, a local monthly magazine, that reports of his resignation were “completely false” and that he did not plan to step down.

It was clear that Falwell’s support had eroded. A Liberty University spokesman, Scott Lamb, said the leadership of the school’s board had been in discussion with Falwell and expected to make a statement Tuesday.

“It’s a mess,” said Dustin Wahl, co-founder of Save 71, a new Liberty alumni group calling for Falwell’s resignation. “This is how Liberty works, and this is how Liberty has worked for the past several years. Falwell is not in line with the rest of the leadership at Liberty. He’s an outlier. And he’s responsible for the chaos.”

Falwell has been on a leave of absence since Aug. 7, after an uproar over a photograph he posted to Instagram that depicted him with his pants partially unzipped and his arm around a woman he later said was his wife’s assistant.

On Monday, a business associate named Giancarlo Granda alleged in an interview with Reuters that he had regular sexual liaisons with Falwell’s wife, Becki, as Falwell looked on, after meeting the couple as a young pool attendant at a luxury hotel in Miami in 2012.

In a statement released Sunday evening that appeared to anticipate the revelations, Falwell conceded that his wife had engaged in an “inappropriate personal relationship” with Granda, but said that he “was not involved.” He added that Granda tried to extort the couple to keep the affair a secret, an ordeal so upsetting that it had caused him to seek mental health treatment.

Falwell and his wife did not respond to requests for comment.

The end of Falwell’s tenure would mark the fall of a pugnacious leader who took over leadership of Liberty, one of the largest Christian colleges in the nation, one day after his father’s death in 2007.

Liberty has had a Falwell at its helm since Falwell’s father, a pastor with a taste for conservative politics, founded the school as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971. Jerry Falwell Sr. aimed to turn the college into a national institution and football powerhouse, with the slogan “Champions for Christ.”

The younger Falwell appeared to fulfill his mission. The school now plays in the top division of college football, and won its first bowl game last year. Liberty now reports an enrollment of more than 120,000 students, including 15,000 who attend classes on its expanding campus in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Falwell’s own national profile has risen dramatically since he endorsed Trump’s presidential bid in early 2016, before the Iowa caucus and significantly before most conservative evangelicals had warmed to him. He became one of the president’s most vocal evangelical supporters, speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention and becoming a regular presence on Fox News.

His loyalty in turn has turned Liberty into a kind of institutional headquarters of Trumpism. Trump delivered the commencement address at Liberty in 2017.

But even within conservative evangelicalism, Falwell has drawn increasing criticism for his sometimes crude behavior, especially on Twitter.

Last summer, he tweeted that David Platt, a respected Southern Baptist megachurch pastor, needed to “grow a pair.” He mocked Russell Moore, the influential head of the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, as a “bureaucrat.” And he called a parent of a Liberty student a “dummy” for questioning his response to the coronavirus crisis in March.

Falwell’s explanation for his brash behavior was that he was a businessman trained as a lawyer, not a pastor or spiritual leader. “I have never been a minister,” he tweeted in 2019. “While I am proud to be a conservative Christian, my job is to keep LU successful academically, financially and in athletics.” Liberty’s faculty handbook describes the president’s job as providing “spiritual and worldview leadership” to the school.

In the statement he gave to The Washington Examiner on Sunday, Falwell described a family relationship with the pool attendant that began innocently when he and his wife met Granda on vacation in 2012, but soured quickly. Granda was employed by the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel. The Falwells were “impressed by his initiative” in pitching them a real estate opportunity, Falwell wrote. The family soon began socializing with Granda in Virginia.

Falwell’s statement depicts the affair between his wife and Granda as developing in the wake of the business partnership. Though it was painful for him to learn about the affair, he wrote, he has since forgiven Becki Falwell and said their “love has never been stronger.” Jerry and Becki Falwell have been married since 1987.

The couple’s relationship with Granda deteriorated over the years. Falwell’s statement alleges that Granda became increasingly aggressive with the family, threatening to publicly reveal the affair and fabricate other claims about the family. “It was like living on a roller coaster,” Falwell wrote.

In his interview with Reuters, Granda denied trying to extort the couple, saying he was instead seeking a buyout from their business arrangement.

“The Falwells are attempting to get ahead of the story by creating a false narrative,” Granda said in a statement to The New York Times shortly before Reuters published his full account. “The truth is coming soon.”

A spokesman for Falwell and his wife declined to comment.

Granda, now 29, a native of Miami, graduated from Georgetown University this year with a master’s in real estate finance, according to his social media posts. Falwell wrote a recommendation letter for Granda’s application to Georgetown in 2018, in which he praised Granda’s business acumen, ethics, and integrity. Granda’s social media posts show he recently founded a company called “Gaming Detox” that tries to foster fitness among the video gaming community.

Falwell’s recent troubles began after he posted a photo on Instagram showing him with his pants partially unzipped and stomach exposed. He is holding a glass of dark liquid in the photo and joked in the caption that it was “just black water.”

Falwell quickly deleted the photo, which was taken at a family party on a yacht, but screenshots circulated widely. The photo attracted criticism in part because students at Liberty are forbidden from drinking alcohol and instructed to “dress modestly at all times.”

Falwell agreed to take an indefinite leave of absence from his roles of president and chancellor of Liberty University on Aug. 7.

Liberty’s board of directors had confirmed Falwell’s paid leave of absence at a meeting Friday. In a statement issued that day, the board said it had “decided not to publicly comment on the various rumors and claims about Falwell at this time.”

Jerry Prevo, a retired Alaska megachurch pastor and longtime board member, has been installed as the school’s acting president. Prevo, who was close with Falwell’s father, is considered to be loyal to the family.

Prevo’s initial statement about Falwell’s leave of absence referred to the “substantial pressure” Falwell experienced as the school’s leader.