God Wear Speedos is the End Story of The Son of Anti Gay Crusader Jerry Falwell

 

                                 

 

Chris Gayomali

This week, Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of a famed televangelist and the longtime president of Liberty University, resigned from his post after accusations emerged of a lurid, three-way affair involving Falwell Jr., his wife, and a young pool boy named Giancarlo Granda whom they met at a Miami Beach hotel. In many ways it’s a tale as old as time, the kind of tangled fall from grace recounted in Homeric epics and Brazzers preroll. Here’s what you need to know:

Who are the Falwells?

Jerry Falwell Sr., who died in 2007, was the big daddy megachurch founder of both Thomas Road Baptist Church in Virginia and the aforementioned Liberty University. He preached an influential strain of white evangelicalism that exists in a political quadrant one could generously call “ultraconservative”: The church is built on a foundation of generally abhorrent viewpoints that are pro-segregation (Falwell was a particularly harsh critic of Martin Luther King, Jr.), anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ (Falwell Sr. once denounced a Teletubby as a “gay icon” that was brainwashing children), and other mumbo jumbo designed to get its followers worked up into a frothy lather. It’s Real Righteous Gemstones-type stuff.

He founded Liberty University in 1971 in Virginia, where students can, according to the school’s website, “Learn, develop, and grow... so you can impact your culture as a Champion for Christ.” Attendees are required to adhere to a strict ruleset called the “Liberty Way,” which prohibits media containing “lewd lyrics,” “sexual content,” and “anti-Christian” messaging; calls for a modest dress code; and bans activities like pre-marital sex and dancing too close.

His son, Jerry Falwell Jr., now 58, took over as president of the university in 2007 following his father’s death and has been an outspoken opponent of homosexuality, Muslims, and all the other stuff you’d expect. Quite naturally, he and his wife Becki, 53, are vocal supporters and close strategic allies of President Trump.

So who is this pool boy?

We first heard the name Giancarlo Granda back in 2017, when Politico reported on a Miami hostel it dubbed “the Falwells South Beach flophouse,” and mentioned that Granda was “a business partner in the hostel’s LLC.” Politico described Miami Hostel, as it was known, as a “gay-friendly” “cesspool of vice,” and questioned the appropriateness of its association with the virtuous Falwells. Then, in 2018, Buzzfeed reported on a lawsuit filed by a father and son against Falwell Jr. which claimed they had helped him conceive the Miami Hostel business in 2012, only to be cut out of it. The suit detailed the affection that the Falwells had quickly developed for Granda, who was 21 at the time; they had met Granda at the Fontainebleau Hotel, where he was working as a pool attendant, flown him around in their private jet, and given him a share of the hostel business in order to help build his career. It later emerged that Falwell Jr. had introduced Granda to Donald Trump when Trump spoke at Liberty University in 2012.

And things get stranger from there.

How so?

In 2o19, more backstory on the Trump-Falwell Jr. relationship emerged after the comedian-turned-activist Tom Arnold taped Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen claiming that the Falwells had engaged him in 2015 to recover personal “photos between husband and wife” that a “guy” who wasn't previously named had somehow obtained from them. (On Wednesday, Cohen confirmed it was Granda, whose lawyer denied it was his client.) Cohen joked that “the evangelicals are kinkier than Tom Arnold” and called the photos “terrible.” According to Reuters, which broke the story, a source “familiar with Cohen’s thinking” said that Cohen had flown to Florida in order to meet with the attorney for the person in possession of the photos and resolved the issue; the photos were supposedly destroyed. Months later, Falwell Jr. endorsed Trump for president, shocking those who had expected him to back Ted Cruz.

Has Jerry Falwell been in hot water about anything else recently?

Amazingly, before l’affaire Granda resurfaced, Falwell Jr. was already on administrative leave from Liberty university, following backlash from an Instagram photo he had posted. In the now-deleted image, his fly was undone, he was holding a beverage, and he had his hands around a woman (not his wife) whose midriff was exposed. It was tame by modern standards, apparently taken at a costume party—the kind that is probably not exactly in accordance with the Liberty Way.

What happened between the Falwells and Granda?

According to a report published this week in Reuters, Granda ended up being more than a mere business associate; he was intimately involved with Jerry and Becki Falwell, and provided Reuters with messages, screenshots, and other sundry RECEIPTS (emphasis added):

Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and continuing into 2018, Granda told Reuters that the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.

Wait...

No kink shaming now. Says Granda: “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room.” In an interview with Politico published Tuesday, Granda claims their first magical evening went down after Becki approached him during his work shift when she saw him chatting up some younger women.

"Becki said, 'Those girls don’t know what they’re doing, you need someone with more experience.’

After chatting, Granda said, Becki suggested they go to a hotel room.

"And then she goes, 'But one thing.' And I'm like, "Okay.' And she's like, 'My husband likes to watch.' And just then he comes out and he's wearing a Speedo."

A Speedo?
God is good!

Okay, okay—so what was in it for Granda?

Aside from co-ownership of the illustrious Miami Hotel, a lavish lifestyle that included vacationing with the couple on their private jet, hiking trips, water skis, etc. At first, Granda says he entered the relationship willingly, but now feels like he was taken advantage of. “Whether it was immaturity, naïveté, instability, or a combination thereof, it was this ‘mindset’ that the Falwells likely detected in deciding that I was the ideal target for their sexual escapades,” he says.

And then things went south?

That’s one way to put it. Granda allegedly tried to untangle himself from the Falwells around 2015, when Falwell’s national profile rose after the Trump endorsement. In a statement to the Washington Examiner this week, Falwell confirmed the affair and went on to accuse Granda (who wasn’t named) of trying to extort them.

“It was like living on a roller coaster. While completely dedicating ourselves to Liberty, we were also suffering in silence during our personal time together, while simultaneously trying to manage and deal with this increasingly threatening behavior, which only worsened over time. We were doing our best to respectfully unravel this ‘fatal attraction’ type situation to protect our family and the university.”

A conscious unthroupling, if you will.

So what now?

On Monday, reports circulated that Falwell Jr. was resigning from his post at Liberty U, then he reportedly reneged. As of Tuesday afternoon he has reportedly submitted his resignation, according to the AP. In any case, Twitter has been having a banner week so far:

This post was updated on Wednesday 8/26 with new information concerning Michael Cohen and Giancarlo Granda's alleged connection.