Brittany Crouch-Koper Interview - PART 2
with Jackie Alnor, host of Rapture Ready Radio’s ‘Apostasy Alert’
– June 7, 2012
[Brittany Crouch-Koper is the daughter of Paul Crouch Jr.
She is the former Chief Financial Officer of TBN who is embroiled in several
lawsuits with her grandparents, Paul and Jan Crouch. The one-hour interview
transcript will be in two to three parts due to its length. {For background
information, see the Orange County Register’s blog on the scandal at:
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2012/05/17/tbn-to-judge-stop-watchdog-blogger/155112/
]
J: Do you know that Jan on Behind-the-Scenes, it was either
May 17th or 18th, Jan said that her and Paul are the
shadow of what Mary and Joseph were, in giving a gift to the world?
B: Wow!
J: It strikes me, considering their moral failures to
compare themselves to two people who had the reputation of the highest moral
quality.
B: They’re very narcissistic people obviously. Again, they
live in their own reality; they make up their own rules; and clearly in the
last thirty years not even the law applies to them. So why wouldn’t they make
that comparison? There’s nobody there [TBN]
that’s been able to or willing to hold them accountable to any sort of
standards, guidelines for anything they do. So it certainly doesn’t surprise me
that she would make a statement like that.
J: How does Jan respond to people who do make fun of her for
her crazy wigs and her eyelashes and the way she dresses?
B: They’re all evil; they’re all of the devil; and whatever.
J: She doesn’t see something wrong? She doesn’t look in the
mirror and say, ‘eesh, this isn’t a good representation’
B: I asked that one time. I was having a conversation with
my dad. I said, ‘Dad, what’s the deal? Really, it takes her two hours to get
dressed. Why does she look like that?’
And my dad said something like, ‘I really don’t know.’ And
he said, ‘it’s been like a progression.’ He said, ‘If she would have walked in
looking the way she does now fifteen years ago, we all would have said gosh
what happened?’ But it was kind of a slow progression into what it is now.
People will always go, ‘oh your grandmother looks like Tammy
Faye. Tammy Faye? Tammy Faye looks normal to me. I mean she wore eyeliner and
eyelashes but how do you even compare the two?
J: And isn’t she responsible for the horrible decorations of
the Bear Avenue place in particularly looks like a cheap French brothel. I
mean, how do people walk through there with a straight face? I guess, it’s hard
for me to fathom.
B: Um, I don’t know. It’s kind of like stepping into an
altered universe. I mean you kinda go there to be entertained and to see
everything and then it’s like let’s get back to reality again and move on with
our lives. But it’s for show and it is what it is I guess.
J: What kind of normal childhood and upbringing could you
have had being so close to it? What was that like?
B: You know, I actually had a very wonderful childhood. I
grew up in Irvine, California which was voted the number one place to raise
children in the world by some magazine. But it was an upper-class community and
I went to public school and I played all kinds of sports and activities and my mom
stayed home and my dad worked. My dad wasn’t involved with TBN until I was
about 15-years-old I think. So I really wasn’t around that other than shooting
the Christmas specials once a year. Being a kid, you don’t really know any
better, so you just…
J: Didn’t Brandon[B’s
older brother] have his own show?
B: Yes, he hosted a few shows for the JCTV network. My
brother is actually working for a church in Santa Monica right now. As part of
the retaliation against me, they fired him. He and his wife went to Santa
Monica and they’re actually doing great. He’s working for a church up there and
helping my dad at the Word Network.
J: What was the timing of when they let him go?
B: Right like around the same time they let my dad go,
probably in October, 2011.
J: How did he feel?
B: Everybody was just very confused about everything. And
he’s hurt. He’s hurt because at the end of the day, these people are your
grandmother and your uncle and your grandfather and for some reason they won’t
speak to him. And he’s like going, ‘What? I don’t understand.’ And none of us
really understand, to be honest. It’s really sad. There’s no reason for
it. We’ve been blessed with good health
and time and it’s definitely time that could be spent together as a family and
for some reason that’s not happening.
J: What about this Jesus character at the Holyland
Experience? I saw them on Behind the Scenes – I watch the show, like I said,
you don’t – and she was doing this whole tour behind the scenes arm-in-arm with
this guy, like snuggling with him through this whole thing. It was like
shocking how indiscreet it was. Do you have any insight into that?
B: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it was very bizarre to me because
when I went over to visit my grandmother in Orlando, he was always around. And
they would hold hands and walk together and I witnessed them snuggling,
exchanging kisses, and I’m like going, ‘What? What in the world?’ And I asked
her about it. I said, “Grandma, what are you doing?” And she said, “oh, I kiss
everybody on the lips.” And I said, “What?” And she said, “yeah, I kiss
everybody on the lips. It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t mean anything.” And it’s
like, I don’t know, it made me very very uncomfortable. I can say that.
J: What’s his name?
B: His name is Les [Cheveldayoff]. And it’s
very sad. He’s got a beautiful wife and three beautiful children. And here he
is clearly having an inappropriate relationship with my grandmother. He doesn’t
leave her side. When she travels somewhere, she takes Les with her.
J: Where are his wife and children at?
B: In Orlando. They live in Orlando.
J: So he’s not living – someone had suggested
that he might be living in that second parsonage in Orlando, next door to hers.
B: No, no. The second parsonage, her – I
guess you could call them her bodyguards – live in the second parsonage.
J: Is it really elaborate, her parsonage that
she lives in?
B: Absolutely. I think she’s repainted it three different
times until she got it just the way she wanted it, you know, remodeling it. It
has a pool table. She’ll invite a lot of HLE employees to parties. It’s got a
pool in the backyard. It’s on a beautiful lake. In fact when she bought it, one
of the things she told me, she goes, ‘Oh yeah, Tiger Woods lives around here.
Beautiful homes.
J: How many homes do they have?
B: The ones – TBN owns homes all over the
place, but the ones that she mainly uses are the one in Orlando, and there’s a
mansion in Newport Beach that’s designated has hers, I guess.
J: What about in other countries?
B: TBN does own one villa in Rome that I’m
aware of. But other than that they don’t really travel much overseas very often
anymore. My uncle Matt is usually the
one to go on the world-wide trips with his wife and kids.
J: There was talk in the exhibits about the
spending that Laurie Crouch – I guess she is one that spends a lot of money and
then writes things off. And then I understand that they don’t pay sales tax because
they show themselves as non-profit with things that they buy. Do you know
anything about that?
B: Well, I can’t talk specifically on certain
things, but yeah, TBN is registered non-profit in various states and their
affiliate companies and so there are certain items that they will purchase and
not pay sales tax on.
J: I know from hearing from Kelly Whitmore
that she was saying that it was part of her job, at least in Dallas or Irving,
Texas, to keep both condos, Jan had one and Paul had one, to keep the bars
stocked with alcohol. It seems like they’re very much into drinking. And even
she testified that your grandmother grew her own marijuana plants and that she
would see remains of joints around her house when she was straightening up for
her. Have you ever known that about your grandmother, that she not only smokes
pot, but cigarettes?
B: It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, but now
in her older years I haven’t witnessed her smoking. She told me she used to
smoke in college. I knew when the law came up in California about the marijuana
being legalized, I asked her what she thought of it and she said, ’I don’t care
if they legalize it.’
But yes, both my grandparents drink alcohol
on a regular basis. My grandfather, unfortunately, has a horrible addiction to
alcohol that has really deteriorated his brain. He is just not the person he
used to be. He definitely has difficulty remembering things on an hour to hour
basis, let alone a day to day basis.
You know, your job there at the company, it’s
very difficult when he tells you to do something and then the next day he says,’
why the heck did you do this?’ And then you kind of go, ‘well wait a minute,
you told me to.’ And he says, ‘I did not!’ – Oh my gosh.
J: Do you believe the stories that your
grandfather is a homosexual?
B: I don’t know. I have no idea. I really
haven’t witnessed any behavior that would indicate that, like I have with my
grandmother and Les, you know, kissing right in front of me. But to be honest,
I really love my grandfather; and I really miss him a lot. I think that he’s
been so manipulated by my grandmother that – you know, he’s not mentally sharp
and so he’s easily controlled by her, he’s easily manipulated into believing
things that aren’t necessarily true. And regardless of any personal downfalls
he may have or things that he’s personally struggling with in his life, I
really miss him. I always felt I had a special connection with him and I really
love him a lot. And I hope that someday to at least have a relationship with
him as a granddaughter because he’s pretty funny. He tells some really funny
stories. I think that’s definitely what I miss the most about being in
California.
J: Well that must be hard because that is
your family and that’s just a shame. Do you hold out much hope that they would
ever just come clean on everything?
B: Yeah I have hope and that’s kind of my
motivation for doing this. I love the ministry at TBN and the people are going,
‘oh she’s trying to destroy TBN.’ No, I’m not! I was trying to make it better
and trying to have it do the right things and follow the laws and be
accountable. I hope to someday accomplish that. Nothing would make me happier
than to see TBN in the hands of somebody who would run it properly and do right
by the employees and really make it a wonderful thing, bringing hope and
inspiration instead of the prosperity gospel. Hopefully, God willing, that will
happen someday.
TO BE
CONTINUED. . .
[Note:
On Thursday, August 2, 2012, the Jesus character, Les Cheveldayoff, made an
appearance on TBN’s Praise the Lord program, hosted by Phil Munsey, for an
apparent public relations Hallmark moment, as cameras panned on his wife and
three daughters sitting in the front row. Greg Laurie was the other guest that
evening celebrating his extended relationship with TBN. His family didn’t look
all that happy to be there.]
