Was Barbie Bridges Busy?

by Not Sure

20 April 2025

The world of the televangelist and megachurch preacher warrants a series of articles. Perhaps we start with the tent revivals where camp meetings met snake oil salesmen. The U.S. seems to be the birthplace of these kinds of larger-than-life characters, but the type translates over to other countries and New Age iterations of the power of faith. Take for example, John of God, not the Portuguese soldier turned health care worker whose followers started the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, but João Teixeira de Faria, a Brazilian self-proclaimed medium and psychic surgeon.

This modern-day John of God was promoted by the mainstream press prostitutes including Oprah Winfrey. CNN, ABC News, and Oprah all agreed that JOG (as I will now refer to John of God) was able to cure people of various maladies because his spirit guides told him where to find the cancer and how to psychically remove it. Sometimes he performed actual quackery, using ‘energized’ mineral water and capsules with pure passionflower. Scissors or forceps were inserted deep into the nostrils or eyeball; no antiseptic or anesthesia needed.

Way back, I had a neighbor whose father was a CEO of a major automobile manufacturer. He came out of the best schools and banking connections and married within his appropriate class. Even his second wife (my neighbor’s stepmother) had all the right breeding. Still, when she became ill, she didn’t go to the Mayo Clinic or Sloan-Kettering but jetted down to Brazil to see JOG and get some psychic surgery. This was instructive to me that everyone is vulnerable to snake oil salesmen, and self-proclaimed men of God.

See Elmer Gantry, or the more recent Leap of Faith for fictional depictions of these types. Perhaps the most compelling story is the 1972 documentary entitled Marjoe, about an abused child preacher who grew up to be an Evangelical con man.

Alan Watt made a study of televangelists, and one who was particularly galling to him was Benny Hinn, an Israeli-born, Palestinian-American-Canadian, known for revival meetings and faith healing summits. The old tent revival went into the sports stadium decades ago. Hinn is of the charismatic line, but he has added a fair dose of ‘prosperity’ into his Mesmer-cocktail. Claiming to live a modest lifestyle, the March 1993 installment of Inside Edition highlighted his $685,000 Orlando, Florida home and Mercedes-Benz. “Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.” Adjusting for inflation, that is $1,518,425. Perhaps, Binn’s lifestyle was modest. His current net worth is estimated at around $60 million. Houston-based televangelist Joel Osteen’s 17,000 square foot house is worth about $10 million, and his overall net worth is about $100 million. Poor compared to Kenneth Copeland who clocks in at a staggering $300 million. This is pocket change money to our tech overlords, but still…

Benny Hinn’s wife famously quipped that what the world needed most was a Holy Ghost enema. Nice. Perhaps she’ll be first in line for the treatment.

The talks of Pastor Gene Scott were introduced to me by Alan. Scott passed away in 2005, but years ago, many of his sermons were still available in audio or video format. He had a PhD in Philosophies of Education from Stanford University and there is no doubt the man was intelligent. Alan described him as a highly entertaining psychopath. He had been a travelling preacher in the Pentecostal tradition. He was expert in the Bible languages: Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, as well as many other languages. He smoked a cigar and cursed on television. Scott had disdain for televangelists, claiming to be a teacher and a pastor, yet he routinely held marathon sessions with a bank of telephone operators to raise money, and he browbeat his listeners regularly. His lifestyle was over-the-top, including a Los Angeles mansion that most recently sold for about $23 million, a private airplane, 24-hour bodyguards, a large garage for his imported cars, and an enormous stable for his broodmares and stallions. A saddlehorse enthusiast, Scott owned a world champion stallion, The King of Highpoint. Others in his stable included The Kings Promise, Coco Loco, Mean Gene Machine, The Kings Parader, Highpoints Fandago, The Kings Promise, Highpoints Hot Chocolate, Tender as Iron, CH The Savoy, The Kings Firestorm, Bubblin Beauty, and Highpoints Fandango.

Gene Scott also collected beautiful women, ex-Playboy Bunnies, cheerleaders, and other good lookers who he employed as ‘pony girls’. He would bring them in for fundraisers and seat them in prominent spots in his congregation. Scantily clad, they formed a unique Greek chorus for his sermonizing. He filmed his girls riding around his property on his expensive horses and then he would show his mansion and girls to his congregants and say, “See what I have waiting for me at home? You’re lucky I’m here.”

In 2000, Gene married Melissa Peroff. It has been said by people who visited Scott’s mansion that Melissa was often seen riding horses topless, bringing new meaning to ‘bare back’. In 2005, at Gene’s death, Melissa Scott took over the ministry. She claims to be proficient in 25 languages, and to have received a PhD in 2017. In 2009, Marie Claire magazine exposed her as a former ‘adult film star’ who had been married to Paul Pastore who worked for an exotic-dancing agency called Fantasy Creations before launching a porn distribution outfit called Barbie Bridges Enterprises. Among its titles: Backdoor Diaries and Heidi’s High Heeled Hookers, which Melissa aka Barbie Bridges is said to have starred in. Pastor Melissa Scott denies these charges and says that photos have been doctored. Not much can be verified. It is alleged by some that she was born in Canada, left that country as a young girl and met Paul Pastore while she was attending high school in Massachusetts. From there, she got into ‘modeling.’ At one point, some industrious sleuth called Pastore and asked about the new Pastor Scott. He said, “If she doesn’t want to talk about [her past in porn], then I’d rather not talk about it. Whatever she wants to do and say, that’s fine with me.”

I asked, “Was Barbie Bridges busy [when Donald Trump needed someone to head up his new Faith Office?]” But when you compare Paula (Furr Knight) White-Cain to a host of televangelist types, she comes out squeaky clean. Yes, she claimed to have a doctoral degree when she has neither a college nor seminary degree, and we might question the effectiveness of her prosperity doctrine since her net worth is estimated to be a mere $5 million.

Pastor Gene Scott was a political operator and when his LA church faced foreclosure in the 1980s, he did a bit of political maneuvering to keep his church doors open. The landmark downtown church on Hope Street was famous for the large neon sign that read, “Jesus Saves.” Pastor Melissa Scott does not employ her late husband’s political style, so perhaps that’s why President Donald Trump never noticed her. Paula White-Cain embraced politics, and she has been a staunch supporter of Trump for years. During the 2020 election, she warned that “Christians that don't support President Trump will have to answer to God.”