Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. resigned as the president of Liberty University on Monday over an alleged sex scandal involving his wife and a business partner, ABC News reports.
Giancarlo Granda told Reuters that he met Jerry and Becki Falwell as a pool boy in 2012 and began “having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.”
The affair continued until 2018, he said.
Granda provided the outlet with emails, text messages, other evidence to show his relationship with the couple.
“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” he said.
The relationship soured when he wanted to dissolve his ties to the Falwells and got into a business dispute with the couple.
The report came after Falwell took an indefinite leave of absence from the university earlier this month after posting and then deleting an image of himself with another woman with both of their pants unzipped.
Falwell denies, then spins:
A lawyer for Falwell initially denied the report, telling Reuters that Falwell “categorically denies everything you indicated you intend to publish about him.”
But on Sunday, Falwell told the Washington Examiner that Granda tried to blackmail the couple over his affair with Becki but did not mention his role in the alleged affair.
“Becki had an inappropriate personal relationship with this person, something in which I was not involved,” he claimed.
Granda denied blackmailing the couple and said he was trying to negotiate a buyout from a business arrangement.
Falwell resigns:
Multiple news outlets reported that Fawell resigned on Monday but Falwell later issued a statement claiming “I have not resigned.”
“I will be on indefinite leave,” he said.
But ABC News reported Monday night that he would step down as president after all.
“I was never called to be a pastor, my calling was to use my legal and business expertise to make Liberty University the evangelical version of Note Dame," Falwell told ABC News. "Some of us are called to be preachers, that wasn’t mine. I was called to make Liberty University the greatest Christian university’s in the world and I couldn’t have done that as a preacher.”
