Three months after Alexandra Pelosi‘s documentary The Trials of Ted Haggard debuted on HBO, the founder of New Life Church and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and his wife will be appearing on Divorce Court, the longest-running court TV show.
The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that Ted and Gayle Haggard are in Los Angeles now filming the show, which will premiere April 1. In an interview with Judge Lynn Toler, the couple will discuss Haggard’s sex-and-drugs scandal involving a male escort that surfaced in November 2006 and led him to resign as pastor of the Colorado Springs megachurch. They will be speaking about how their Christian faith has kept their marriage from ending in divorce.
To promote the HBO documentary, the Haggards also appeared on Oprah and CNN’s Larry King Live in late January. On the latter, Haggard described himself as a “heterosexual with complications.” The couple tells Colorado Springs Gazette that they are scheduled to speak at prominent evangelical churches in coming months.
Update: The Associated Press reports that Haggard initially wanted his wife to divorce him.
Ted Haggard said he wasn’t rejecting his wife but thought he had become so “toxic” that divorce was best for her and their children. He said she replied, “No way. I’m not going to do that.”
Ted Haggard told the show’s “presiding judge,” Lynn Toler, that when he consulted with pastors about his sexual struggle, they advised him to pray about it, but that didn’t help.
Since then, he said, he has consulted Christian counselors in secular counseling centers and now no longer has sexual desire for men.
The Haggards were to be paid an undisclosed amount for their appearance on Divorce Court.
