“My dad and I were thick as thieves," Falwell Jr. told Vanity Fair

Jerry Falwell Jr. Was Reportedly Paid Millions To Leave Liberty University (msn.com)



Who is Jerry Falwell Jr.?

Let's start at the beginning. Jerry Falwell Jr., 60, is an attorney, but perhaps most famously, a prominent Evangelical Christian and former academic administrator. He’s the eldest son of televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., a conservative Christian leader and televangelist.

“My dad and I were thick as thieves," Falwell Jr. told Vanity Fair in a recent interview. The elder Falwell died at 73 in 2007.

Jerry was formerly the president of Liberty University, a school his father founded in Virginia, before a very public fall from grace, per NBC. He resigned from his post under pressure from school officials, per NBC. But more on that in a second.

Before his departure, Jerry had actually done a lot to resuscitate Liberty, bringing it back from near-bankruptcy and turning the university into "a financial powerhouse with more than 100,000 students and a $1.7 billion endowment," per Vanity Fair.

He later faced a civil lawsuit from the school, which alleged that he created a “well-resourced exit strategy” from his role as president and chancellor in the form of a 2019 employment agreement while keeping details of his scandal secret, NBC reported.