RELIGION
Falwells’ Business Partner Details Affair with Couple
Giancarlo Granda says sexual relationship with staunch Trump allies began in 2012
BY ARAM ROSTON VIA REUTERS
In a claim likely to intensify
the controversy surrounding
one of the most infl uential
fi gures in the American
Christian conservative movement,
a business partner of Jerry Falwell,
Jr., has come forward to say
he had a years-long sexual relationship
involving Falwell’s wife
and the evangelical leader.
Giancarlo Granda says he was
20 when he met Jerry and Becki
Falwell while working as a pool attendant
at the Fontainebleau Miami
Beach hotel in March 2012.
Starting that month and continuing
into 2018, Granda told Reuters,
the relationship involved him having
sex with Becki Falwell while
Jerry Falwell looked on.
Granda showed Reuters emails,
text messages, and other evidence
that he says demonstrate the sexual
nature of his relationship with
the couple, who have been married
since 1987.
“Becki and I developed an intimate
relationship and Jerry enjoyed
watching from the corner of
the room,” Granda said in an interview.
Now 29, he described the liaisons
as frequent — “multiple times
per year” — and said the encounters
took place at hotels in Miami
and New York, and at the Falwells’
home in Virginia.
His friendship with the Falwells
eventually soured, Granda told Reuters,
in part because he wanted
to dissolve his ties with the couple
and fell into a business dispute
with them.
Granda fi rst emerged as a fi gure
in the Falwells’ circle two years ago,
when BuzzFeed News reported that
the couple had befriended Granda
and gone into business with him,
buying a Miami Beach youth hostel
in 2013. At the time of the Buzz-
Feed article, a representative of the
Falwell family said Granda was
“offered a share” in Alton Hostel
LLC because Granda lived in Miami
and would act as a manager
of the youth hostel. Corporate records
show that Granda currently
has a stake in that venture.
Giancarlo Granda, who was befriended by Jerry Falwell, Jr., and his wife Becki while he was working as
a pool attendant at a luxury Miami Beach hotell, seen here in Washington this month.
Becki Falwell did not respond
to emails or phone and text messages
from Reuters. After Reuters
presented its initial reporting early
last week to the Falwells, a lawyer
for Jerry Falwell, Michael Bowe,
said the evangelical leader “categorically
denies everything you
indicated you intend to publish
about him.”
On Sunday night, however, as
Reuters was preparing to publish
this article, Jerry Falwell issued a
statement to the Washington Examiner
in which he said that his
wife had an affair with Granda
and that Granda had been trying
to extort money from the couple
over the matter. Granda denies any
such intent, saying he was seeking
to negotiate a buyout from a business
arrangement he says he had
with the couple.
Falwell’s statement Sunday to
the Examiner said nothing about
Granda’s account alleging that the
evangelical leader had his own role
in the affair, and Falwell didn’t address
questions from Reuters about
it. In the statement quoted by the
Examiner, Falwell said, “Becki had
an inappropriate personal relationship
with this person, something
in which I was not involved.”
Hours after the Reuters story
REUTERS/ JONATHAN ERNST
appeared Monday, Falwell resigned
as head of Liberty Univerity.
News of the entanglement could
pose a fresh threat to the infl uence
of Jerry Falwell, a towering fi gure
in the US evangelical political
movement. His 2016 endorsement
of Donald Trump helped the twicedivorced
New Yorker win the Republican
nomination for president.
Falwell, 58, took an indefi nite
leave of absence earlier this month
from Liberty University, the Christian
school he has run since 2007.
The leave, announced in a terse
statement from the school’s board
of trustees, came days after Falwell
posted, then deleted, an Instagram
photo of himself with his
pants unzipped, standing with
his arm around a young woman
whose pants were also partly undone.
Falwell later told a local radio
station that the picture was meant
as a good-natured joke.
Becki Falwell, 53, is a political
fi gure in her own right. She served
on the advisory board of the group
Women for Trump, which advocates
for the president’s reelection
campaign. She also spoke as part
of a panel with her husband and
Donald Trump, Jr., at last year’s
Conservative Political Action Conference,
or CPAC, the signature
annual gathering of conservatives.
Jerry Falwell and others refer to
her as “the fi rst lady of Liberty University.”
The university, based in Lynchburg,
Virginia, was founded in
1971 by Falwell’s televangelist father,
the Reverend Jerry Falwell.
The younger Falwell took over in
2007. Today, the university boasts
an online and on-campus enrollment
that exceeds 100,000 students
and holds those who attend
to an exacting honor code.
“Sexual relations outside of a
biblically ordained marriage between
a natural-born man and a
natural-born woman are not permissible
at Liberty University,” the
code reads.
The material Granda showed Reuters
includes screenshots of what
Granda said was a FaceTime conversation
he had with the Falwells
in 2019. During that call, Granda
said, Becki was naked as the two
discussed their relationship while
Jerry peeked from behind a door.
Reuters was able to verify Granda’s
description of the screenshots.
Granda also shared an audio
recording that he says captures
a conversation he had with the
Falwells in 2018. In it, Becki complained
about Granda describing
his relationships with other people:
“He’s like telling me every time he
hooks up with people. Like I don’t
have feelings or something.”
Jerry then chimed in: “You’re going
to make her jealous.”
“I’m not trying to do that,” Granda
replied.
Earlier texts show a friendly and
romantic dynamic between Granda
and Becki Falwell. One 2012
text message, which Granda said
came from Becki, read in part:
“Right now I am just missing you
like crazy… Have you had this effect
on all of your lady friends?”
Other more recent text messages,
such as an exchange from this
June that Granda provided to Reuters,
show Granda growing angry
and frustrated as his relationship
with the Falwells frayed.
“Since you’re okay with ruin-
➤ THE POOL BOY SPEAKS, continued on p.9
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