The son of former Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. has left the school just eight months after his father resigned in the wake of scandal.
A spokesman for Liberty confirmed the news that Jerry “Trey” Falwell III—Jerry Falwell, Jr’s oldest son—was no longer employed as Liberty’s vice president of university operations. The news was first reported yesterday by Politico.
The departure comes after Falwell Jr. resigned as president of the school in the wake of controversial posts on social media and allegations he and his wife, Becki Falwell, had a yearslong sexual relationship with a business associate — allegations the former president has disputed.
One of Falwell Jr.’s controversial posts from last summer included a video of several members of the Falwell family dressed up as characters in the raunchy Canadian TV series Trailer Park Boys. In the video, which has since been removed, Trey Falwell appears as “Randy,” a former male prostitute in Trailer Park Boys (TPB), who has an on-and-off gay relationship with another TPB character.
Trey also owns the Alton Hostel, which Trey and his father formerly co-owned with Giancarlo Granda—the man at the center of the sexual scandal with Falwell Jr. and his wife, Becki Falwell.
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Recently, Falwell Jr. has reappeared on social media, as well as on Liberty’s campus.
The elder Falwell posted on Instagram last week that he had gotten the first shot of Moderna’s vaccine for COVID-19 (while taking a shot of a different kind at Virginia’s governor). He also posted photos from a Liberty lacrosse game and shared the reason he has “been so ‘absent’ from LU” is because he has been suffering from clots in his lungs.
“I didn’t even have the strength to go on TV to refute lies in the press,” Falwell Jr. posted.
The news about Trey Falwell is but the latest in a series of shake-ups involving prominent Liberty officials.
Less than a week ago, Liberty announced that Jonathan Falwell, senior pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Falwell Jr.’s brother, will replace David Nasser as the university’s campus pastor at the end of the current school semester.
In addition, Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist who co-founded Liberty’s politically minded think tank known as the Falkirk Center with Falwell Jr., also quietly ended his affiliation with the school in March. With both Falwell Jr. and Kirk out, the center changed its name to the Standing for Freedom Center.
Other members of the Falwell family are also employed by the school, but Liberty declined to comment on their employment status to Politico, saying officials “do not answer questions about personnel.”
Religion News Service reporters Emily McFarlan Miller and Jack Jenkins also contributed to this report.
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9 Responses
Interesting,
Perhaps the purge of the family is beginning.
Either that or like father, like son, he also likes to _WATCH_ and a new round of excrement is about to hit the whirling cooling blades…
Liberty is still sponsoring a NASCAR race car in 2021 as a primary sponsor. Liberty University Board approved? Part of a long term contract? Yearly cost? (My guess is it’s in the millions). Are NASCAR teen fans now deciding to go to Liberty after seeing a glimpse of the Hendrick #24 car go around the track on television? My guess is the tuition of all the students coming in combined “because”/due to this strange sponsorship is no where close to the actual ad costs being laid out. Are incoming students being tracked how many of them actually chose Liberty due to the influence of watching a NASCAR event? Most likely Jerry Jr. can’t even enjoy the Hendrick yacht anymore- or is he? Lots of unanswered questions here- with no transparent Board answers anywhere in sight.
Higher Ed’s estimate of cost of the sponsorship 6 mill a year https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/08/21/were-falwell%E2%80%99s-yacht-vacations-aboveboard
Thanks for posting this link. I had no idea it was this high of a figure. Yowsa.
What’s especially disappointing is that massive amounts of money is being spent on stuff like this but the entire philosophy department was axed. So much for the liberal arts. It’s a bad look for a university
This is a sad story. This is a real problem in the evangelical world where ministries get passed on to children who don’t have the founder’s conviction or vision and see it as a business to be exploited for personal gain. I think Jerry Sr. was the real deal, but as with many of these visionary leaders, they don’t take the time to invest the same energy into their children as they do their “calling”. I think they need stronger people around them.
He looks like the love child of Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro
Usually, people in their early thirties are trying to become an associate professor, not VP at a university. So there’s something odd about the very process of him getting to where he was, and I dare say that in a manner of speaking, his dad may have ruined his career/life by giving him a job for which he really wasn’t qualified.
Along those lines, I’m going to have to guess that Trey is gone because he was a central figure in a few really odd real estate deals the university did. Probably also doesn’t help that he was one of those partying with his dad and others in a way that didn’t exactly appear to follow the code of conduct, to put it mildly.
Maybe Trey was projecting when he portrayed that Trailer Park Boys character? Maybe that will come out and he it turns out he swings both ways….