Pastor Keion Henderson expresses loyalty to TD Jakes amid Diddy controversy
Keion Henderson, founder and CEO of The Lighthouse Church & Ministries in Houston, Texas, has professed his unyielding loyalty to popular televangelist T.D. Jakes after the arrest of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, with whom Jakes has been controversially linked, because he has been "good to me."
In an interview with former National Football League quarterback Cam Newton released on YouTube on Saturday, Henderson argued that the public has a "negativity bias" against Jakes. He even invoked a phrase from Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris' recent interview with CNN when she was asked about former President Donald Trump's implication that she "happened to turn Black" for political purposes.
"I'll just put it in the words of Kamala Harris when Dana Bash asked her a question about Donald Trump. Next question please," Henderson said when first questioned about the relationship between Jakes and Combs.
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The 43-year-old pastor, who says he has known Jakes for about 15 years, described his relationship with the 67-year-old who founded The Potter's House megachurch in Dallas as a "father-son" bond.
At a church conference in June, Henderson, who is married to Shaunie O'Neal, the ex-wife of former professional basketball player and sports analyst Shaquille O'Neal, publicly wept on Jakes' shoulder.
"We got a father-son relationship going, and man, the amount of information that that man has poured into me, not just about the Bible. He was there when I closed my biggest real estate deal. He was there when I sold one of my tax companies. He was there when I got a $7 million loan to buy 24 acres. He was there. He was there when I bought 10 acres for $1.5 million and sold it for $3.6 million," Henderson recalled.
"He was there doing all of that at no charge, but that's what I thought a father was supposed to do the whole way, so I figured in exchange for him being a great father, I'd be a great son. And I've tried my best to invest in what he's doing, whether it's to take hundreds of people to his conferences, support his online ministry, anything that I could do, because for me, the opposite of lazy Love is reciprocity," he continued.
Henderson said in an interview with Jakes several years ago that he did not know who his father was until he was 12. He said his mother told him that his father was the married pastor of their church.
In the interview, he said he had always looked up to his pastor, and when he learned that he was his father, he became angry and never saw him as a role model again.
The relationship with Jakes, he said, filled the hole left by his biological father.
"If anybody been good to you, you got to be good to them no matter what anybody thinks. Like you good to me, yes sir I'm good to you because I don't let people determine how I'm going feel about somebody who been good to me. I don't do that. You can't. The relationship you and I got, your biggest enemy can't make me turn my back on you. Yes, sir, that ain't how I roll," Henderson told Newton.
The Houston pastor argued that the ongoing focus on Jakes and his relationship with Combs is due to a "negativity bias."
"People's minds stay on negativity longer than they should. And here is the deal, I don't know nothing about nothing, so why am I going to speak about something that I don't know nothing about? Ain't nobody going to drag me in that conversation," Henderson said after Newton appeared to question his loyalty to Jakes amid the "turmoil that was stricken and that has been looming in ministry with him, with others."
"How does your faith, how does your stance with this person when people know the connection?" Newton asked after Henderson talked about how good Jakes had been to him.
"People know, like they say in the street, 'Oh that's your boy ain't it?"
Henderson, however, remained adamant in his refusal to discuss the relationship between Jakes and Combs.
"Ain't nobody getting no sound bites out of me on that conversation. Because he don't deserve that from me, he don't deserve it from anybody who talking about it," he said. "This is how you know it ain't real journalism. Real journalism asks questions of the accused before they post."
When Newton interjected, "That's been gone since social media," Henderson doubled down on his defense of Jakes.
"Since that can be one-sided, then my response is, 'He's been good to me. He's helped me through and navigated me through things that I wouldn't have had cause my biological father was not there to do such. He's given me opportunities to preach on platforms. He's preached on ours. He's invested in our church," he said. "In fact, during our most recent hurricane situation that tore our building down, Bishop Jakes sent the second check to our church to help us to continue to go when we didn't even have a building to go into. So my last word is, he's been good to me. I'm going stay good to him."
A 14-page indictment unsealed on Sept. 17 by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams accuses Combs, 54, of abusing, threatening and coercing women and others. The rapper is accused of leading a racketeering conspiracy that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice, along with other crimes between 2008 and the present.
"As alleged in the Indictment, for years, Sean Combs used the business empire he controlled to sexually abuse and exploit women, as well as to commit other acts of violence and obstruction of justice," Williams said in a statement.
Jakes has faced public scrutiny for his relationship with Combs over the years, and the music mogul's recent arrest has sparked fresh conversation about his relationship and how deep it actually was.
In March 2023, Christian music producer Rodney "Lil Rod" Jones alleged in a lawsuit that he made audio recordings of "Combs detailing how he planned to leverage his relationship with Jakes to soften the impact on his public image of Cassie Ventura's lawsuit."
"Mr. Combs providing laced alcoholic beverages to minors and sex workers at his homes in California, New York, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Florida. Mr. Combs Chief of Staff, Kristina Khorram ('KK') instructing her staff to retrieve drugs so she can provide it to Mr. Combs for his consumption, Christian Combs drugging and sexually assaulting a woman. Mr. Combs detailing how he planned to leverage his relationship with Bishop T.D. Jakes to soften the impact on his public image of Cassie Ventura's lawsuit," the lawsuit notes.
In 2022, a video of Jakes attending Diddy's 53rd birthday party in Los Angeles caused a stir among some Christians on social media, with many questioning why he was at the party and whether it was appropriate for him to be attending a party thrown by Diddy, knowing the reputation of those parties.
At the crux of the latest charges against Combs is elaborate sex parties known as "Freak Offs," according to the indictment. Combs allegedly coerced, forced, drugged, and paid women and commercial male sex workers to engage in sexual activity sometimes for days.
Derrick Williams, executive vice president of TD Jakes Entertainment, who attended Combs' 53rd birthday party with Jakes, previously told CP that the video was captured during a brief stop at the party while they were in town for business. Another source close to the situation also told CP that, as far as they are aware, that is the only party hosted by Diddy that Jakes ever attended.
"As a filmmaker, executive producer and one of the pioneers of value-based movies, Bishop Jakes, in his role as CEO of T.D. Jakes Entertainment, paid respect to the former chairman of Revolt during the celebration of his birthday," Williams said.
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