Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. is a personality beloved in conservative circles and reviled by liberals. His stands on feminism, LGBTQA+ matters, and religions other than his own have been debatable among many on the left. He and his wife are both evangelical leaders and look to God for answers.
But his personal life has been disturbed by an affair that provoked him to spin into sessions of depression and weight loss. His wife is allegedly guilty of having a relationship.
In 2019, problems arose about their marriage after actor Tom Arnold exposed that Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen told him that Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife Becki had requested Cohen to meet an unnamed person and recover some racy photographs of the couple.
Arnold did not have any more details to give at the time other than that because Cohen was behind bars, causing him not to be available to communicate to the reporter so he could explain matters.
Who is Becki Tilley Fallwell?
Becki Tilley was born in 1965.
The conservative is about 55 or 56 years old, and her exact birthday is unknown. Her husband, Jerry Falwell Jr, is 58 years old.
Becki Tilley and Jerry Falwell Jr. met as teens.
Becki Tilley coincided with Jerry Falwell Jr. when she was 13 years old. He would have been about 16 at the time. They did not start dating until five years later, when Tilley was a freshman at the University of Virginia.
There is no specifying of what the future Mrs. Falwell was studying or if she even graduated. Falwell is said to have joked that she was “interested in an M-R-S degree,” adding that was code for “husband hunting.“
Marriage of Becki Tilley and Jerry Falwell Jr.
Becki Tilley and Jerry Falwell Jr. Got Married in 1987
They have three children and two grandchildren together. The couple has two sons, Charles Wesley, 26 years old, and Jerry Trey Falwell III, 30 years old. They also had one daughter Caroline Grace, 19 years old. The Tilleys are also grandparents to two granddaughters Reagan and Virginia Rose.
Becki Tilley is super conservative.
Like her husband, Tilley is highly conservative. She supports Donald Trump, and she vocally rejects LGBTQA+ rights.
In 2019, she even went as far as disparaging trans people by talking about her granddaughter. She said, “We’re raising her as a girl. We’re not letting her have a choice. God makes the choice of what the babies are gonna be. And God decided she was a girl.”
She and her husband are orthodox Christians.
Tilley Reportedly had an Affair with a Pool Boy
In a strange story that broke in 2018, the Falwells were in court in Florida over a youth hostel. They purchased the hostel in Miami with their friend and business partner, Giancarlo Granda, who was working as a pool assistant at a high-end hotel in Miami.
The couple became friends with the younger man and even flew him places on their private jet. They posted photos of themselves sharing foods with him.
Granda, who is 29 years old, lived in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown University at the time when he offered a business plan to buy, redecorate, and manage a hostel in the Miami Beach area. Falwell would later tell that he lent money from a shell company to Alton Hostel LLC, which was controlled by Falwell’s wife, son, and Granda, to make the deal.
According to court documents, Falwell stated, “My wife and I provided a loan of $1 million for Alton Hostel’s purchase of the Alton Property. Later, my wife and I provided additional funds of approximately $800,000 for renovations of the Alton property, which are being treated as an additional loan.“
The court case started when two other men, Jesus Fernandez Sr. and Jr., sued Granda and the Falwells, saying they had been assured a cut of the deal, but the money for them never materialized.
There was a lot of speculation circling the Falwells’ relationship with Giancarlo Granda.
Granda met the couple when he was only 20 years old then in March of 2012, and beginning that month, Granda said “the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.”
“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda continued, explaining that the encounters happened “multiple times per year ad took place at hotels in Miami and New York, and at the Falwells’ home in Virginia.”
The conservative reportedly saw his wife have sexual relations with the pool attendant for seven long years.
After the court case became known, there was huge speculation about the nature of the relationship between the Falwells and Granda and whether or not there was a sexual element to their interactions.
Much of the speculation was fired by the couple’s long-standing and blunt criticisms of premarital sex, same-sex unions, and LBTQA+ rights. The potential for a sex disgrace to expose a couple that has criticized how other people have sex always gives a cultural flashpoint.
Falwell Jr. said that his wife had an affair with Giancarlo Granda.
In August of 2020, Falwell Jr. revealed that, after he was placed on indefinite vacation, his wife did, in fact, have an affair with Granda. He said that during the time of her affair, he was despondent and dropped 80 pounds. The couple did reunite, and he said the relationship only continued for a short while.
Even though the affair happened years ago, Granda became “increasingly angry and aggressive.” He even decided to extort the Falwells by threatening to make the affair public.
But Falwell Jr. couldn’t confirm that there were attempts of extortion made by Granda. This pushed Falwell Jr. to go to press with the story before Granda had the chance.
In reply, Granda said, “Any allegation of extortion is false, defamatory, and belied by clear documentary evidence. The Falwell’s attempt to sandbag me, and the ‘Washington Examiner’, with a last-minute story without providing the ‘Washington Examiner’ clear evidence that this was not simply an ‘affair’ with concocted allegations of extortion reeks desperation. The WHOLE truth will come out.“
Overall, Falwell Jr. needs to encourage others to find help and mental health resources if they want someone to talk to because that’s what he should have done. He makes his mental health fights public to reveal to others that there are other ways of coping rather than just bottling things up.
“I shouldn’t have been afraid to admit my vulnerabilities and to reach out for assistance from the mental health professionals who could have alleviated this pain and stress,” he said. “I am committed to speaking out and sharing with others at Liberty the importance of seeking counseling, instead of thinking you need to be tough and try to bear these burdens on your own.“
Becki Tilley is reportedly associated with multiple sexual relationships.
After Granda spoke up in August of 2020, another sexual encounter accusation emerged. This time from a former Liberty University student who claims Becki Tilley did sexual activities on him at the Falwell home after a band practice with her son in 2008. The student was 22 at the time and said that Tilley started, and he went along with it.
Granda told Politico in an interview that, “She was the aggressor.”
The Falwells have Refused Everything
The disclosure of racy photos of Jerry and Becki Falwell brought back the questions about the nature of their relationship with Granda. Is it possible that the three of them did have a sexual relationship, and the photos were evidence of that.
Cohen did not specify on the tapes, and Granda and the Falwells were refusing Everything. An unnamed attorney working for them sent a statement, saying, “While the Falwells have a long-standing friendship with Michael Cohen, they never engaged or paid Cohen to represent them in any legal or any other professional capacity, and Cohen did not ever resolve any legal matter on their behalf.“
The lawyer followed up with a text saying, “There are no compromising or embarrassing photos of Falwell, period!”
For his part, Granda’s lawyer Aaron Resnick issued a statement adding, “Giancarlo Granda has never had any communications with Michael Cohen (directly or indirectly). He does not know Mr. Cohen. He has never met Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen is a convicted felon and admitted liar. Mr. Granda has no idea about the alleged, ‘personal photographs.'”
At the time, no one had witnessed the alleged photos to know what is in them or even if they existed.
Jerry Falwell Jr. was lately caught up in another photo scandal.
Another condemning picture of Falwell Jr. started making its way around the Internet. Social media was keen to start giving their opinions on the photo, with many voicing interests over Falwell Jr.’s position at Liberty University about the inappropriate image. However, a spokesperson from the school has refused to comment on the controversy.
As of August 7, 2020, he declared he was taking an unspecified leave of absence. This statement came after this photo was released because it straight attacked the school’s code of conduct.
Former University of Lynchburg students want to rename part of the campus named after Falwell’s father.
In yet another scandal, Falwell Jr. is being targeted by former students who want to cut ties with Liberty University and rename the campus area that was named after Falwell’s father because of his actions.
The students claim that Falwell Sr. was known for making biased comments towards minorities. One former student wrote in a letter, “His values do not align with what the University of Lynchburg says they want to be. His rhetoric represented that of racism, bigotry, placism, and sexism until the last day.“
Falwell has already come out and rejected the claims, saying, “My father loved everybody, but he did have certain theological beliefs and he expressed them and he was very vocal about them. But that’s theological; it’s not anything to do with not loving people.”
The online petition for the University to close ties with Liberty currently has hundreds of signatures.
The Net worth of the Tilley Family is Very High
Falwell Jr. gets paid $1 million per year as president of Liberty University. His net worth is expected to be about $100 million. He and his family are highly powerful in conservative politics — an endorsement from Falwell Jr. is much-coveted in Republican circles.
The Falwell family grew to prominence due to Rev Jerry Falwell Sr. ‘s great career as a conservative Christian minister. Far from being the kind of pastor who lives modestly, Falwell used television to build a Christian empire.
The family has a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. This town is also the position of Liberty University, which Falwell Sr. established. Also, the family has many businesses and real estate holdings in Lynchburg and the surrounding area.
