Jerry Falwell Jr. Finally Resigned for Real Over That Threesome With the Pool Boy

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Jerry Falwell Jr. is no longer the president of Liberty University, the evangelical Virginia college his late father started nearly 50 years ago, after allegations of an affair between him, his wife, and a former business partner became public on Monday. 

Following the publication of a Reuters report about the affair in which Falwell reportedly resigned and then took back his resignation, Falwell told the Wall Street Journal that he had resigned for good on Monday night. Falwell took an indefinite leave of absence from the university earlier this month after a photo posted online showed him with his pants unzipped and arm around another woman. 

“The board put me on leave, took away my duties as prez, and that’s not permitted by my contract,” Falwell told the Wall Street Journal, claiming he was still owed additional compensation. “And they put me on leave because of pressure from self-righteous people.”

On Monday, Giancarlo Granda, the Falwells’ former business partner, told Reuters that he carried on an affair with the couple for seven years, a relationship which involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while her husband watched. 

“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda told Reuters, describing the trysts as happening multiple times per year, beginning in 2012, when he was a pool attendant at a Miami hotel. The relationship ended in 2018, according to Granda.

Falwell has denied his role in the affair, issuing a statement to the Washington Examiner claiming that Becki “had an inappropriate personal relationship with this person,” one which he was “not involved” in, which Falwell said led to a bout of depression as he balanced “how to be most supportive of Becki, who I love, while also reflecting and praying about whether there were ways I could have been more supportive of her and given her proper attention.”

After reports Monday that Falwell resigned, Falwell told Politico he hadn’t done so. 

Liberty University then released a statement of its own, saying Falwell resigned and then withdrew his resignation. “Falwell responded by agreeing to resign immediately as President of Liberty University today but then instructed his attorneys to not tender the letter for immediate resignation,” the university said in a statement. Acting Liberty President Jerry Prevo, a retired Baptist minister from Alaska, asked for university supporters to pray “as we walk with the Lord through this stormy time of transition.”

Falwell Jr., a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, has been engulfed in multiple scandals over the past few years. In May 2019, Reuters reported that a recorded phone conversation between comedian Tom Arnold and former Trump fixer Michael Cohen featured Cohen saying Falwell Jr. had asked him for a favor to keep racy photographs supposedly involving him and his wife from becoming public. And earlier this year, Falwell said Liberty campus police had obtained warrants for the arrests of two journalists who reported critically on Falwell’s decision to reopen Liberty University after spring break during the first phase of the pandemic. 

Falwell Jr. was only the second president in the university’s history, taking over after his father Jerry Falwell’s death.

“I’ve put 50 years of my life into this school. Nobody else could have built it from zero when my dad died into a $4 billion school,” Falwell Jr. told the Wall Street Journal, adding: “If they want to let me go over a picture showing my belly on the internet, that’s not a school I want to be part of.”

Cover:  In this, Nov. 13 2019, file photo, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. talks to Donald Trump Jr. about his new book "Triggered" during convocation at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. (Emily Elconin/The News & Advance via AP)