Marcus and Joni Lamb, the founders of the Daystar Television Network, used their Tuesday (11/30) broadcast of “Celebration” to reveal that Marcus had an affair several years ago. The infidelity was made public now to thwart a demand for money to keep the incident secret.
According to a statement from Daystar: “At the top of the program, the Lambs shared a compelling, transparent account of a personal challenge in their marriage that occurred several years ago, involving an inappropriate relationship between Marcus and another woman. After Joni told her husband the Lord convinced her he was worth fighting for, together they submitted to an intense process of repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration through pastoral counseling and personal accountability under the leadership of an expanded church-based spiritual authority team.”
According to Joni Lamb, three people recently demanded that Daystar pay them $7.5 million or they would take the story of marital infidelity to the news media. The network said the three people were not involved in the affair, but did not explain how they came to know of it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re not going to take God’s money and pay to keep from being humiliated,” Marcus Lamb was quoted by the Dallas Morning News as saying during the broadcast. The newspaper was invited to have a reporter present in the studio for the broadcast, but the Lambs did not take any questions afterward.
Daystar, a Christian TV network based in suburban Dallas, owns more than 70 full- and low-power TV stations. Its programming is carried on an additional 80 or so stations, plus international satellite broadcasts. It claims to reach 80 million US television households.
Marcus and Joni Lamb launched their TV ministry in 1985, three years after they were married, by building a new station in Montgomery, AL. They relocated to Dallas and built KMPX-TV in 1993. The network was launched in 1997 and the flagship station was upgraded to the stronger signal of KDTN-TV in 2004, with KMPX being sold to Liberman Broadcasting.
