TILTON FILES FOR DIVORCE
FROM SECOND WIFE, THEN RECONCILES

Former televangelist Robert Tilton reconciled with his second wife, Leigh Valentine Tilton, just 16 days after he filed for divorce. Before their brief separation, Tilton and his wife had been married 21 months.

Tilton and his current wife, a former beauty pageant contestant, preach together at Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center in Dallas. Two months before their breakup, the Tiltons, along with her 3-year-old son, had moved into a $681,000 parsonage in the North Dallas suburb of Addison.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s Tilton and his first wife, Marte, were prominent on both religious and secular airwaves. Their Success-N-Life program was seen on about 200 stations and at its peak, took in $6 million a month in donations. In 1991, ABC’s PrimeTime Live aired an exposé of the televangelist and his “ministry” that led to the collapse of the program and Tilton’s church, whose membership plummeted from 10,000 to under less than 1,000. Tilton and his first wife were divorced in 1993, after 25 years of marriage.

Responding to the temporary split with Leigh, Tilton told reporters: “We serve a miracle-working God.”

—AMG

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