Televangelist Tammy Fay Bakker Messner dies

By Carey Gillam

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, a former televangelist who helped lead a huge television ministry before its collapse in a sex and corruption scandal, has died, her Web site reported on Saturday.

Messner died on Friday at age 65 after a long battle with cancer. CNN's Larry King, who interviewed Messner on his "Larry King Live" talk show on Thursday night, said her family had asked him to make the delayed announcement of her death.

"She died peacefully," King said on CNN's Web site.

"I believe when I leave this Earth because I love the Lord, I am going straight to heaven," Messner told King in the interview.

On May 8, Messner, who recently moved to the Kansas City area from Charlotte, North Carolina, posted a message on her Web site, www.tammyfaye.com, saying she had withered to 65 pounds and that doctors had decided to stop treatment, leaving her fate "up to God and my faith."

Messner was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996 and announced in 2004 it had spread to her lungs.

In a "final note" posted on her Web site on Monday, Messner said: "I have times when I feel good and times when I feel really bad. But, I have learned one thing about feelings. They have nothing to do with faith in God!!

"He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changes. That is what the Bible says and God's word does not lie ever."  Continued...