Who Is Becki Tilley Falwell? Details On Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Wife And Her Alleged Affair With Pool Boy
She's a conservative Christian.
getty Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. is a figure beloved in conservative circles and reviled by liberals. His stances on feminism, LGBTQA+ issues, and religions other than his own have been controversial among many on the left. He and his wife are both evangelical leaders and look to God for answers.
But his personal life has been plagued by an affair that caused him to spin into bouts of depression and weight loss. His wife is allegedly guilty of having an affair.
Who is Becki Tilley Fallwell, Jerry Falwell Jr.'s wife?
In 2019, questions arose about their marriage after actor Tom Arnold revealed that Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen told him that Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife Becki had asked Cohen to meet an unnamed person and retrieve some racy pictures of the couple.
Arnold didn't have any more details to share at the time other than that because Cohen was behind bars, causing him to not be available to talk to the press so he could clarify matters.
What is going on with Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife, Becki? And what does it have to do with a pool attendant they met in Miami and befriended before loaning him almost $2 million? What about these other controversies surrounding Falwell Jr.?
Read on for the details about Becki and Jerry Falwell Jr. and the controversy that has surrounded them for a long time.
Becki Tilley was born in 1965.
The conservative is about 55 or 56 years old since her exact birthday is unknown. Her husband is 58 years old.
Becki Tilley and Jerry Falwell Jr. met as teenagers.
Becki Tilley met Jerry Falwell Jr. when she was 13 years old. He would have been about 16 at the time. They didn’t begin dating until five years later when Tilley was a freshman at the University of Virginia.
There’s no mention of what the future Mrs. Falwell was studying, or if she even graduated. Falwell is said to have joked that she was “interested in an M-R-S degree,” adding that was code for "husband hunting."
The couple married in 1987.
Becki Tilley has three children with Falwell Jr.
They have three children and two grandchildren together. The couple has two sons, Charles Wesley (26) and Jerry Trey Falwell III (30). They also had one daughter Caroline Grace (19). The Tilleys are also grandparents to two granddaughters Reagan and Virginia Rose.
Becki Tilley is super conservative.
Like her husband, Tilley is extremely conservative. She supports Donald Trump and she vocally opposes LGBTQA+ rights.
In 2019, she even went as far as disparaging trans people by talking about her granddaughter. She said, “We’re raising her as a girl. We’re not letting her have a choice. God makes the choice of what the babies are gonna be. And God decided she was a girl.”
She and her husband are evangelical Christians.
Tilley reportedly had an affair with a pool attendant.
In a peculiar story that broke in 2018, the Falwells were in court in Florida over a youth hostel. They bought the hostel in Miami with their friend and business partner, Giancarlo Granda, who was working as a pool attendant at a high-end hotel in Miami.
The couple became friends with the younger man and even flew him places on their private jet. They posted photos of themselves sharing meals with him.
Granda (29) lives in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown University at the time when he proposed a business plan to purchase, renovate, and run a hostel in the Miami Beach area. Falwell would later testify that he lent money from a shell company to Alton Hostel LLC, which was controlled by Falwell's wife, son, and Granda, to make the deal.
According to court documents, Falwell said, “My wife and I provided a loan of $1 million for Alton Hostel's purchase of the Alton Property. Later, my wife and I provided additional funds of approximately $800,000 for renovations of the Alton property, which are being treated as an additional loan.”
The court case arose when two other men, Jesus Fernandez Sr. and Jr., sued Granda and the Falwells saying they had been promised a cut of the deal, but the money for them never materialized.
There was a lot of speculation surrounding the Falwells' relationship with Giancarlo Granda.
Granda met the couple when he was only 20 years old in March of 2012 and starting that month, Granda said "the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on."
“Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda continued, explaining that the encounters happened “multiple times per year ad took place at hotels in Miami and New York, and at the Falwells’ home in Virginia."
The conservative reportedly watched his wife have sexual relations with the pool attendant for seven long years.
After the court case became public, there was tremendous speculation about the nature of the relationship between the Falwells and Granda, and whether or not there was a sexual component to their interactions.
Much of the speculation was fueled by the couple’s long-standing and outspoken objections to premarital sex, same-sex unions, and LBTQA+ rights. The potential for a sex scandal to expose a couple that has criticized how other people have sex always provides a cultural flashpoint.
Falwell Jr. revealed that his wife had an affair with Giancarlo Granda.
In August of 2020, Falwell Jr. revealed that, after he was placed on indefinite leave, his wife did, in fact, have an affair with Granda. He said that during the time of her affair, he was very depressed and lost 80 pounds. The couple did reconcile and he said the affair only lasted for a short while.
Even though the affair happened years ago, Granda became "increasingly angry and aggressive." He even tried to extort the Falwells by threatening to make the affair public.
But Falwell Jr. couldn't prove that there were attempts of extortion made by Granda. This pushed Falwell Jr. to go to the press with the story before Granda had the chance.
In response, Granda said, "Any allegation of extortion is false, defamatory, and belied by clear documentary evidence. The Falwell’s attempt to sandbag me, and the 'Washington Examiner', with a last-minute story without providing the 'Washington Examiner' clear evidence that this was not simply an ‘affair’ with concocted allegations of extortion reeks desperation. The WHOLE truth will come out.”
Overall, Falwell Jr. wants to inspire others to seek help and mental health resources if they need someone to talk to because that's what he should have done. He's making his mental health struggles public to show others that there are other ways of coping instead of just bottling things up.
"I shouldn't have been afraid to admit my vulnerabilities and to reach out for assistance from the mental health professionals who could have alleviated this pain and stress," he said. "I am committed to speaking out and sharing with others at Liberty the importance of seeking counseling, instead of thinking you need to be tough and try to bear these burdens on your own."
Becki Tilley is reportedly linked to multiple sexual relationships.
After Granda spoke up in August of 2020 another sexual encounter allegation arose. This time from a former Liberty University student who claims Becki Tilley performed sexual activities on him at the Falwell home after a band practice with her son in 2008. The student was 22 at the time and said that Tilley initiated and he went along with it.
Granda told Politico in an interview that, "She was the aggressor."
The Falwells have denied everything.
The revelation of racy photos of Jerry and Becki Falwell brought back the questions about the nature of their relationship with Granda. Is it possible that the three of them did have a sexual relationship and the photos were evidence of that?
Cohen didn’t specify on the tapes and Granda and the Falwells were denying everything. An unnamed attorney working for them sent a statement, saying, “While the Falwells have a long-standing friendship with Michael Cohen, they never engaged or paid Cohen to represent them in any legal or any other professional capacity, and Cohen did not ever resolve any legal matter on their behalf.”
The lawyer followed up with a text saying, “There are no compromising or embarrassing photos of Falwell, period!”
For his part, Granda’s lawyer Aaron Resnick issued a statement adding, “Giancarlo Granda has never had any communications with Michael Cohen (directly or indirectly). He does not know Mr. Cohen. He has never met Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen is a convicted felon and admitted liar. Mr. Granda has no idea about the alleged, 'personal photographs.'”
At the time, no one had seen the alleged photos to know what is in them or even if they existed.
Jerry Falwell Jr. was recently caught up in another photo scandal.
Another condemning photo of Falwell Jr. started making its way around the Internet. In the photo, he's on a yacht with his arm around a woman and his pants unzipped.
Social media was quick to start giving their opinions on the photo, with many voicing concerns over Falwell Jr.'s position at Liberty University in relation to the inappropriate photo. However, a spokesperson from the school has declined to comment on the controversy.
As of August 7, 2020, he announced he was taking an indefinite leave of absence. This statement came after this photo was released because it directly violated the school's code of conduct.
Former University of Lynchburg students want to rename part of the campus named after Falwell's father.
In yet another scandal, Falwell Jr. is being targeted by former students who want to cut ties with Liberty University and rename the area of the campus that was named after Falwell's father because of his actions.
The students claim that Falwell Sr. was known for making bigoted comments towards minorities. One former student wrote in a letter, “His values do not align with what the University of Lynchburg says they want to be. His rhetoric represented that of racism, bigotry, placism, and sexism until the last day.”
Falwell has already come out and denied the claims, saying, “My father loved everybody, but he did have certain theological beliefs and he expressed them and he was very vocal about them. But that’s theological; it’s not anything to do with not loving people.”
The online petition for the University to end ties with Liberty currently has hundreds of signatures.
The Tilley family net worth is pretty high.
Falwell Jr. gets paid $1 million per year as president of Liberty University. His net worth is estimated to be about $100 million, and he and his family are extremely influential in conservative politics — an endorsement from Falwell Jr. is much-coveted in Republican circles.
The Falwell family rose to prominence due to Rev Jerry Falwell Sr.’s long career as a conservative Christian minister. Far from being the type of pastor who lives simply, Falwell used television to create a Christian empire.
The family has a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. This town is also the site of Liberty University, which Falwell Sr. founded. Also, the family owns many businesses and real estate holdings in Lynchburg and the surrounding area.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side.
Editor's Note: This article was originally posted in May 2019 and was updated with the latest information.