In 1999, Frank Houston, the father of Hillsong founder Brian Houston, confessed that he had committed child sex abuse. It doesn’t bode well for anyone.”Īs Vanity Fair previously reported, Lentz was not the only source of Hillsong scandal. It also puts a chink in Justin’s own credibility, when he’s reinventing himself within the Christian landscape. To hear those revelations, it doesn’t just put a chink in Carl’s armor. “I don’t think you need to look very far to see that Justin doesn’t have many role models, especially at that time, of people he could trust that were modeling a life of stability. “I would say that Bieber saw Carl as a father figure,” says Lee. Several months later, Bieber announced that he was affiliated with a new church. Shortly after Hillsong fired Lentz, Bieber and his wife, Hailey, unfollowed the pastor on Instagram. They traveled the world together and I think that it’s a real pain point for Carl-what ultimately happened with their relationship.” lived at the Lentz family’s house for months during some of the darkest times of Bieber’s life. I think they did have a very close relationship. “Even directing conversation toward Justin Bieber, you could see the tension. He doesn’t like that,” Lee explains.Ĭarl was also reluctant to discuss Bieber. His legacy-what everyone knows him for now-is he is a celebrity pastor that fell from grace. “He was very adamant that he did not like the title ‘celebrity pastor,’ because that the other things he was doing. But there were two subjects that repeatedly caused Carl to bristle. He’s willing to take accountability for his actions. He’s open about his affairs and their impact on his family. During the interview, Carl reveals that he was sexually abused as a child, and discusses some of the work he’s done to untangle his own trauma. “I had to ask questions over and over again in different ways, because Carl’s had press training…he had to break down some of those kind of innate, automatic responses and defense systems,” she says. They were mutual adult decisions by two people who lied profusely, mainly to my wife.” He also admits, “I’m responsible for that power dynamic…and I failed absolutely miserably.” “Any notion of abuse is categorically false. “I am responsible for allowing an inappropriate relationship to develop in my house with someone that worked for us,” he replies. The filmmaker asks Carl point-blank about those particular allegations in the docuseries’ second episode. “We are talking about incredibly damning accusations…not things that you can just walk back.” (Lentz was not charged with a crime over the allegations.) When pitching the couple on the docuseries, “we wanted to make it clear that they would have to walk through the fire and answer for a lot of the accusations from that 10-year period that were problematic,” says Lee-like the allegation that Carl sexually abused his family’s nanny, who was also a member of the Hillsong community. They figured out their own personal dynamics, their family, what was going to happen with them and their kids.” When she approached the family members, she says, “they were trying to think about what the next part of their life would look like.” “Rather than come out and give their perspective on every accusation, they disappeared. “It had been almost two years since they were very abruptly fired,” explains the filmmaker. When The Secrets of Hillsong director Stacey Lee filmed Lentz with his family for the docuseries this year, the ex-pastor was living an under-the-radar existence in Sarasota, Florida, reporting to a run-of-the-mill advertising job in a nondescript office. His life looks much different than it did about 10 years ago, when Lentz was the charismatic figurehead of New York City’s fast-growing Hillsong outpost-lording over rock-concert-like sermons, serving as spiritual adviser to Hillsong’s most famous disciple, Justin Bieber, and sitting for interviews with the likes of Oprah Winfrey. Lentz speaks with surprising candor in the four-part investigative docuseries, premiering May 19, which advances Dan Adler and Alex French’s definitive reporting of the Hillsong scandals for Vanity Fair. The decisions that I made, the pain that was caused, the betrayals involved…I take responsibility for those.” “I’m tired of putting people I love through pain. Speaking for the first time about his public fall from grace three years ago-when he was ousted from his position as the titular church’s celebrity pastor and his extramarital affairs came to light-Lentz looks back on his rock-bottom realizations. “I’m tired of this damage,” Carl Lentz announces in the new FX docuseries The Secrets of Hillsong.
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