The Church of Living Dangerously
How One of America’s Biggest Pastors Became a Drug Runner for a Mexican Cartel
ICYMI, here’s one of my favorite crime stories. It’s a piece I wrote for Vanity Fair about John Bishop, who looked like Sammy Hagar, preached like Billy Graham, and brought a 350-pound tiger to church. Then he shot heroin with his son and was busted at the border for running drugs for a Mexican cartel.
New Regency is adapting my story into a feature film starring Christian Bale and written by Charles Randolph, who last collaborated with Bale on The Big Short.
About that tiger. As I describe in the story, Bishop “expanded his ever-popular animal-themed services to include a camel named Curly, a black bear, and, he says proudly, ‘the spider monkey from Pirates of the Caribbean.’ He also added a huge Bengal tiger named Sundar. During the show, as the beast lumbered past him onstage, Bishop reached out to pet it—something he had specifically been warned not to do.”
Here’s what happened next:
To read more of my feature stories, as well as posts from my longform project, Masters of Disruption: How the Gamer Generation Built the Future, please subscribe below. Thanks!