Keion Henderson, founder and CEO of The Lighthouse Church & Ministries in Houston, Texas, has professed his unyielding loyalty to well-liked televangelist T.D. Jakes after the arrest of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, with whom Jakes has been controversially linked, as a result of he has been “good to me.”
In an interview with former Nationwide Soccer League quarterback Cam Newton launched on YouTube on Saturday, Henderson argued that the general public has a “negativity bias” in opposition to Jakes. He even invoked a phrase from Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ current interview with CNN when she was requested about former President Donald Trump’s implication that she “happened to turn Black” for political functions.
“I’ll just put it in the words of Kamala Harris when Dana Bash asked her a question about Donald Trump. Next question please,” Henderson stated when first questioned concerning the relationship between Jakes and Combs.
Get Our Newest Information for FREE
Subscribe to get day by day/weekly electronic mail with the highest tales (plus particular gives!) from The Christian Publish. Be the primary to know.
The 43-year-old pastor, who says he has identified Jakes for about 15 years, described his relationship with the 67-year-old who based The Potter’s Home megachurch in Dallas as a “father-son” bond.
At a church convention in June, Henderson, who’s married to Shaunie O’Neal, the ex-wife of former skilled basketball participant and sports activities analyst Shaquille O’Neal, publicly wept on Jakes’ shoulder.
“We got a father-son relationship going, and man, the amount of information that that man has poured into me, not just about the Bible. He was there when I closed my biggest real estate deal. He was there when I sold one of my tax companies. He was there when I got a $7 million loan to buy 24 acres. He was there. He was there when I bought 10 acres for $1.5 million and sold it for $3.6 million,” Henderson recalled.
“He was there doing all of that at no charge, but that’s what I thought a father was supposed to do the whole way, so I figured in exchange for him being a great father, I’d be a great son. And I’ve tried my best to invest in what he’s doing, whether it’s to take hundreds of people to his conferences, support his online ministry, anything that I could do, because for me, the opposite of lazy Love is reciprocity,” he continued.
Henderson stated in an interview with Jakes a number of years in the past that he didn’t know who his father was till he was 12. He stated his mom instructed him that his father was the married pastor of their church.
Within the interview, he stated he had at all times appeared as much as his pastor, and when he realized that he was his father, he turned indignant and by no means noticed him as a task mannequin once more.
The connection with Jakes, he stated, crammed the outlet left by his organic father.
“If anybody been good to you, you got to be good to them no matter what anybody thinks. Like you good to me, yes sir I’m good to you because I don’t let people determine how I’m going feel about somebody who been good to me. I don’t do that. You can’t. The relationship you and I got, your biggest enemy can’t make me turn my back on you. Yes, sir, that ain’t how I roll,” Henderson instructed Newton.
The Houston pastor argued that the continued deal with Jakes and his relationship with Combs is because of a “negativity bias.”
“People’s minds stay on negativity longer than they should. And here is the deal, I don’t know nothing about nothing, so why am I going to speak about something that I don’t know nothing about? Ain’t nobody going to drag me in that conversation,” Henderson stated after Newton appeared to query his loyalty to Jakes amid the “turmoil that was stricken and that has been looming in ministry with him, with others.”
“How does your faith, how does your stance with this person when people know the connection?” Newton requested after Henderson talked about how good Jakes had been to him.
“People know, like they say in the street, ‘Oh that’s your boy ain’t it?”
Henderson, nonetheless, remained adamant in his refusal to debate the connection between Jakes and Combs.
“Ain’t nobody getting no sound bites out of me on that conversation. Because he don’t deserve that from me, he don’t deserve it from anybody who talking about it,” he stated. “This is how you know it ain’t real journalism. Real journalism asks questions of the accused before they post.”
When Newton interjected, “That’s been gone since social media,” Henderson doubled down on his protection of Jakes.
“Since that can be one-sided, then my response is, ‘He’s been good to me. He’s helped me through and navigated me through things that I wouldn’t have had cause my biological father was not there to do such. He’s given me opportunities to preach on platforms. He’s preached on ours. He’s invested in our church,” he stated. “In fact, during our most recent hurricane situation that tore our building down, Bishop Jakes sent the second check to our church to help us to continue to go when we didn’t even have a building to go into. So my last word is, he’s been good to me. I’m going stay good to him.”
A 14-page indictment unsealed on Sept. 17 by U.S. Lawyer for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams accuses Combs, 54, of abusing, threatening and coercing girls and others. The rapper is accused of main a racketeering conspiracy that engaged in intercourse trafficking, compelled labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, together with different crimes between 2008 and the current.
“As alleged in the Indictment, for years, Sean Combs used the business empire he controlled to sexually abuse and exploit women, as well as to commit other acts of violence and obstruction of justice,” Williams stated in a assertion.
Jakes has confronted public scrutiny for his relationship with Combs through the years, and the music mogul’s current arrest has sparked recent dialog about his relationship and the way deep it truly was.
In March 2023, Christian music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones alleged in a lawsuit that he made audio recordings of “Combs detailing how he planned to leverage his relationship with Jakes to soften the impact on his public image of Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit.”
“Mr. Combs providing laced alcoholic beverages to minors and sex workers at his homes in California, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Florida. Mr. Combs Chief of Staff, Kristina Khorram (‘KK’) instructing her staff to retrieve drugs so she can provide it to Mr. Combs for his consumption, Christian Combs drugging and sexually assaulting a woman. Mr. Combs detailing how he planned to leverage his relationship with Bishop T.D. Jakes to soften the impact on his public image of Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit,” the lawsuit notes.
In 2022, a video of Jakes attending Diddy’s 53rd party in Los Angeles brought on a stir amongst some Christians on social media, with many questioning why he was on the occasion and whether or not it was acceptable for him to be attending a celebration thrown by Diddy, realizing the repute of these events.
On the crux of the most recent costs in opposition to Combs is elaborate intercourse events referred to as “Freak Offs,” in line with the indictment. Combs allegedly coerced, compelled, drugged, and paid girls and industrial male intercourse staff to interact in sexual exercise generally for days.
Derrick Williams, govt vp of TD Jakes Leisure, who attended Combs’ 53rd party with Jakes, beforehand instructed CP that the video was captured throughout a quick cease on the occasion whereas they had been on the town for enterprise. One other supply near the scenario additionally instructed CP that, so far as they’re conscious, that’s the solely occasion hosted by Diddy that Jakes ever attended.
“As a filmmaker, executive producer and one of the pioneers of value-based movies, Bishop Jakes, in his role as CEO of T.D. Jakes Entertainment, paid respect to the former chairman of Revolt during the celebration of his birthday,” Williams stated.
Contact: [email protected] Comply with Leonardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Comply with Leonardo Blair on Fb: LeoBlairChristianPost
“Well bless their hearts.”
