The "hot" pastor's moral failures
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a celebrity pastor gets in trouble, a model has a birthday party (and gets in trouble), and Katie Holmes enjoys life.
It’s the question that’s consumed the nation this week: What’s going on with Justin Bieber’s celebrity pastor friend? You’ve probably heard the headline by now — Carl Lentz, 42, the “hot” pastor at the evangelical powerhouse Hillsong’s New York City branch, was fired for “leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral failures.” Oh no.
Brian Houston, the Australian founder of the (millennial-friendly but still very conservative) church, announced Lentz’s termination in a statement published the day after the U.S. presidential election, and after much speculation, Lentz confirmed the news on Instagram yesterday. Alongside a photo of him with his wife and three children (taken at Bieber’s wedding in South Carolina last fall), he confirmed he was leaving his post and revealed, “I was unfaithful in my marriage.” (He also said a bunch of other stuff about the “grace of God” that you can read at your leisure.)
So far, we don’t have concrete details about the extent of Lentz’s misbehavior. An anonymous source told Deuxmoi that Lentz had an affair with a podcaster based in New York, which sounds just dumb enough to be true. But would that be enough of a lapse for Houston to make a big deal of firing Lentz publicly? I suspect that whatever happened, it wasn’t a one-off. Check out this comment on Lentz’s post from Esther Houston (her husband is Joel Houston, son of Brian and co-pastor at Hillsong NYC):
So far, Bieber hasn’t commented on the apparent moral failings of his longtime spiritual adviser. (Neither has his wife Hailey Bieber, who’s close with Lentz’s wife Laura Lentz.) It’s because of Bieber, though, that you even know Lentz’s name. He’s part of the cadre of evangelical leaders that counsel the pop star wherever he is: New York, L.A., on tour. All of them have hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers and vast streetwear collections. Along with Lentz, there’s Judah Smith, 42, the pastor at Churchome in Seattle. Smith is Bieber’s first and most significant pastor relationship; he was the one to introduce Bieber to Lentz. Then there’s Chad Veach, 38, the leader of Zoe Church in L.A. While he hasn’t been on the scene quite as long as Lentz and Smith, he’s become increasingly influential in Hollywood (he introduced Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger). And then there’s Rich Wilkerson Jr., 36, the pastor at Vous Church in Miami. He’s perhaps most famous for officiating Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding in Florence in 2014.
All of these 40-ish-year-old men have been intimately involved in Bieber’s life, but perhaps none more so than Lentz. In 2014, the pastor famously baptized him in NBA star Tyson Chandler’s bathtub. Shortly thereafter, Lentz convinced Bieber to move into the Lentz family home in New Jersey for an “informal detox.” (Bieber said he was abusing Xanax at the time.) When Bieber got back together with Selena Gomez at the end of 2017, Lentz reportedly offered the pair “Christian couples counseling,” embedding himself even more deeply in Bieber’s personal matters. Then, Bieber and Gomez broke up, and Bieber and Lentz had some kind of falling out.
There is a completely unsubstantiated rumor that something happened between Lentz and Gomez, and that’s what caused the break. Perhaps the likelier scenario is that Lentz was simply too involved in the relationship between two twenty-something pop stars, and when they broke up, as twenty-something pop stars are wont to do, they pulled away from him. (Though she’s continued to attend Hillsong services, Gomez no longer follows Lentz on Instagram. She does follow Wilkerson Jr.)
Bieber and Lentz’s relationship was still frosty when Bieber proposed to Hailey during the summer of 2018, but by the time of their wedding last fall, things seemed to be back to normal. Lentz attended the celebration with his family and posed for photos with all the other famous pastors. (Smith was the one to actually officiate the ceremony.) As of this summer, Bieber was still hanging out with the Lentz family and making TikToks with their youngest child.
Will Bieber disavow the man who baptized him? Will Carl and Laura divorce, and will the Biebers have to pick a side? Will the mysterious NYC podcaster come forward with her story? There’s only one thing we know for sure: Hailey Bieber is not pregnant.
And Us Weekly should focus on the election.
Before the drama of this week unfolded, the Biebers found themselves in the middle of yet another controversy: They were among the dozens of celebs who attended Kendall Jenner’s maskless Halloween/birthday party at Harriet’s Rooftop in West Hollywood. Other guests included Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott, Doja Cat, Jaden Smith, Paris Hilton, Saweetie, and The Weeknd, who memorably dressed up as the Nutty Professor. (Also, Scott Disick showed up with Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin’s 19-year-old daughter Amelia Gray Hamlin because, oh, why not.)
Even though the gathering was in direct violation of COVID restrictions in L.A. County, Kris Jenner defended her daughter’s decision to throw a party in a radio interview with Andy Cohen this week. She said that all the attendees were tested before entering and added, “We’re dealing with lots of people that have different opinions, and all we can do is live our lives the best way we know how and be responsible and do the right thing.” Okay.
On Thursday, Hailey and Kendall met up for lunch at Zinque Cafe. This time, both of them were wearing masks, and Kendall was wearing extra-long bike shorts. What do you think they talked about?
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: This week, Hilary Duff wore her pants inside out.
Finally, I’ll leave you with the top headline of the week, care of Just Jared:
If you look at the photos, it does seem as though Holmes was smiling and kissing her boyfriend at the same time.
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And please feel free to send me all your Hillsong theories.