Laura Lentz, wife of ex-Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz, once had a physical altercation with her husband and their nanny after catching them in a “compromising position,” she says in a new documentary series.
FX’sThe Secrets of Hillsong, which chronicles thescandals of the famous megachurch, features the first interviews with the couple since they were forced out of the church in 2020 for Carl’s “moral failures,” with the former pastor lateradmitting to infidelity.
In the series' second episode, which airs Friday, Laura revealed her shock upon first learning from her husband that he’d been unfaithful. “It was Oct. 25 [2020], I remember that day. Carl was like, ‘Hey, can I talk to you for a second?’ As soon as he shut the door…my heart just dropped,” she recalled. “He basically said, ‘I’ve been unfaithful to you.'”
On a Zoom call with the couple, board members and founderBrian Houston, who went on toresign in 2022amid complaints that he behaved inappropriately towards two women, questioned Carl, now 44, about his relationship with the Lentz family’s nanny, Leona Kimes, also a church member.
“They asked Carl about Leona,” Laura said in the episode. “He hadn’t told me this part yet.”
Laura Lentz.FX
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Kimes had been a trusted part of the family, and was “always” at the house, Laura said, noting that Kimes was even there on Christmas Day.
Still, Laura said she had suspected something was going on. “I’d sometimes get these little feelings. And then one night I found them in a compromising position,” she said. “I ran into the room and I shoved Carl and hit him and then I jumped on top of her and I punched her.”
“Something came over me,” she said. “I was angry and I definitely freaked out.”
Laura said that Kimes denied there was something going on between her and Carl, and that afterwards, they “never talked about it again.”
“We were her pastors, we were her leaders; she was on staff. It got really messy,” Laura shared. “Instead of talking about it again, I would just stuff it down.”
Carl Lentz.FX
When addressing the allegations in the second episode, Carl took responsibility for “allowing an inappropriate relationship to develop in my house with someone that worked for us,” but reiterated that “any notion of abuse is categorically false.”
After their exit from Hillsong, though they struggled to move past what had happened, the couple ultimately stayed together and worked through the fallout of Carl’s betrayal.
In a social media post shared over a week before the documentary series premeried, Carl shared the couple hadrecently celebrated their 20th anniversary.
Carl Lentz and wife Laura.Charley Gallay/Getty
“For the last 3 yearsmy entire focus has been fighting for my wife and my kids,” he wrote. “All I wanted was to prove to my wife and kids that I could show up for them like I had never done before. Although we have a long way to go, with a lot of work, a lot of honesty and a lot of prayer, we have found ourselves in a beautiful, happy and deliberately honest place.”
The Secrets of Hillsongepisodes 1-2 air Friday on FX and will be available to stream on Hulu Saturday. Episodes 3-4 will drop on May 26.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go tothehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
source: people.com
