Evangelical leader and notorious finger-wagger Jerry Falwell Jr. would watch as his wife had sex with a south Florida pool boy, that pool boy alleged to Reuters in an article published Monday.
The report answers the question posed by a bizarre Sunday night statement that Falwell released, in which he confirmed on his wife’s behalf that she had had an affair with the former pool boy, Giancarlo Granda, but that it was “something in which I was not involved.”
Granda told Reuters that Falwell would sit in the corner and watch as Granda had sex with his wife Becki, a relationship that took place over many years.
“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda told Reuters, saying that the relationship began in March 2012 and continued through 2018.
Granda added in the report that he felt he had been targeted by the bible-thumpers. “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 said.
The revelation comes on the first day of the Republican National Convention, an event at which Falwell spoke in 2016.
The longtime Liberty University leader took a leave of absence on August 7 from the evangelical institution after he posted a photo on Instagram in which he was standing on a yacht with a young woman, who he later said was a female assistant of his wife’s, with both their pants unzipped.
Falwell’s wife Becki had her own perch in Trumpworld, advising the re-election group Women for Trump.
Falwell denies the allegations, and emphasized in the Sunday statement that the claims were false and part of an extortion campaign that Granda denies. Reuters said it had relied on photos and recordings of private conversations to verify aspects of Granda’s allegations, including screenshots of a FaceTime call during which, Granda told Reuters, a naked Becki chatted with Granda while Jerry peeked from behind a door.
The Reuters report offers extensive detail of the relationship between the three, which took place as Falwell helmed a university that banned any private contact between unmarried members of the opposite sex.
Falwell coached Granda on how to handle the relationship, Reuters reported. In one case, the report describes Falwell’s wife complaining that Granda would describe other relationships of his.
“He’s like telling me every time he hooks up with people. Like I don’t have feelings or something,” Becki Falwell reportedly said. The Liberty University president then reportedly told Granda that “you’re going to make her jealous.”
The reporter who broke the story and led up to it with numerous reports, Aram Rostom, appeared to earn an oblique mention from Falwell in his last-minute statement. There, Falwell accused Granda of using “false claims” about their relationship to extort him for money.
“He clearly moved forward with this plan through a specific member of the media who has continued to badger us, as well as other members of the media, regarding the false claims about the nature of the relationship based on the individual’s misrepresentations,” Falwell wrote. “Over the course of the last few months this person’s behavior has reached a level that we have decided the only way to stop this predatory behavior is to go public.”
