![]() ![]() Religion should bring people together, but sometimes it tears people apart," she says cryptically. Any brothers or sisters? "Right now I'm kind of disconnected from my family. "I moved around a lot, kind of hodgepodge, everywhere," she says. But her cordiality can't mask the occasional hard edges-the stern glance at a colleague who digs into his lunch before saying grace, the firm that's-all-you're-getting-from-me pause that punctuates her oblique answers to softball questions about her upbringing. She smiles often and broadly, revealing impeccably white, straight teeth, the product of braces and bleaching. In person, Scott is warmer than her haranguing pulpit persona. Having wrapped up her Sunday sermon only a half-hour earlier, she's still wearing a thick layer of makeup-a worked-over blemish on her chin cracks the otherwise pristine veneer. She's sitting in a private chamber at the church, decorated to look exactly like the tack room where her husband kept his saddlebred horses, replete with royal blue felt walls studded with reproductions of British foxhunts. ![]() I am consumed with my work," says Pastor Melissa Scott, soothing her raspy throat with sips of warm water. But unlike those toppled icons, Scott clung to her denial and carried on preaching. It seemed as if Scott had joined the long, sordid list of disgraced televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and, most recently, Ted Haggard, ousted from his Colorado church following allegations that he solicited a male prostitute. ![]() She even trotted out a Hollywood attorney to threaten her congregants with lawsuits should any more anonymous missives materialize. But Scott would cop to nothing, dismissing the incident as an expert Photoshop job, part of a sick smear campaign by religious nuts. Others claimed she was a walking billboard for the redemptive powers of faith. ("Who else wants to bang the bejesus out of Pastor Melissa Scott?" inquired one.) Already stinging from the regime change following Doc Scott's death, some demanded her resignation. Scott's Wikipedia page was so vandalized, it had to be removed Web newsgroups devoted to the church were overrun by users posting more damning photos. Another featured a "See you Sunday!" banner plastered across her bare chest underneath, it read: "The Church Where You Can Do Anything. One image showed the woman with her legs spread wide, Virgin Mary and baby Jesus postage stamps covering her privates. But after her first sermon, someone anonymously mailed churchgoers Easter cards featuring snapshots of a porn star named Barbie Bridges, who looked remarkably similar to Pastor Melissa Scott. Shortly after his funeral, Doc Scott's comely young wife assumed University's pulpit. In his heyday as pastor, Doc Scott reportedly collected $1 million a month in donations and amassed an empire that included two horse ranches, a 35,000-square-foot mansion in Pasadena, a private plane, and a collection of luxury cars. Gene "Doc" Scott, the wildly popular "shock jock of televangelism"-nearly 40 years her senior-to complications from prostate cancer. Four years ago, she lost her husband, Dr. Scott knows a thing or two about tough roads. In unison, they bark, "Tough shoes for a tough road!" Ninety minutes later, she slips offstage and is whisked by security out of the building through a private passageway. "Before I found God's word, when things got bad, what did I have? I had friends and family forsake me," she cries, directing her followers to Deuteronomy 33:25. PASTOR MELISSA SCOTT TVHer doe-eyed image is beamed to local cable stations-she is a late-night staple-courtesy of six TV cameras flanking the pulpit. The unlikely stunner who leads this congregation, Scott, 40, struts the stage clutching a red-leather Bible, periodically flinging her endless chestnut locks. But on any given Sunday, several hundred parishioners converge here for a rousing service that has them swaying and shouting Hallelujah!, enraptured by the low, breathless calls for salvation from Melissa Scott. PASTOR MELISSA SCOTT MOVIEMost folks drive right past the gritty stretch of downtown Los Angeles that houses University Cathedral, a former movie palace whose marquee now advertises weekly evangelical sermons. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions (opens in new tab) and Privacy Policy (opens in new tab) and are aged 16 or over. ![]()
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