May 19, 2014
Dallas TV 'Walk-Out' Queen Likely Daughter of Disgraced Televangelist
EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.
It appears as though the apple hasn't fallen far from the hypocritical tree. The Dallas area morning show co-host who created headlines for herself after an on-air rant and subsequent walk-out during a debate over ESPN's broadcast of Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend has been linked to disgraced 1990's televangelist scam artist Robert Tilton.
Were they former work associates? Nope. Did she shred documents for him? Guess again. According to JoeMyGod, she's probably his daughter.
Amy Kushnir, who last week was so outraged that ESPN's broadcast of Michael Sam's gay kiss was "pushed in faces" of the kids of good Christian sports following parents is likely the daughter of televangelist Robert Tilton, whose infomercial-styled religious program "Success N Life" ran in 235 U.S. markets during the late 1980s and early 90s.
Tilton and his ministry became the subject of a 1991 "ABC Primetime Live" investigation that uncovered that he was soliciting donations with prayer requests, only to keep the money and discard the prayers in a dumpster. According to Wikipedia, the scam grossed the tax-free ministry an estimated $80 million per year.
News of the likely Kushnir/Tilton connection was first discovered on the "Christian Nightmares" Tumblr page. Since then, blogger Joe Jervis dug deeper and noticed that Kushnir's parents were missing from her official bio.
From JoeMyGod:
Rev. Robert Tilton's first wife, to whom he was married during the ABC-spawned scandal, is named Martha and goes by the unusually spelled nickname Marte. Two weeks ago Kushnir posted a Facebook photo of her mother's birthday party and in the comments a friend of Kushnir's writes, "Happy birthday, Marte!"
Robert Tilton's mother, Margaret Ruth Tilton, died in 2006 and her obituary lists the scamvangelist and his current third wife among her survivors. Also listed is an Amy Tilton Kushnir and her husband Bill. The husband of the television host Amy Kushnir is indeed named Bill and his Facebook profile lists that he attended Oral Roberts University.
Fourteen years ago Charisma Magazine interviewed Marte Tilton and noted that she had four children with Robert Tilton, including a daughter named Amy, then aged 30. According to the Explore Talent site, Dallas television host Amy Kushnir is 44 today. In a 2001 interview with the Dallas Morning News, Marte asked that paper not say where her children live, adding that they have "suffered a lot because of their last name." Marte and Rev. Tilton divorced in 1993, when the television host Amy Kushnir would have been 23.
Although all of this evidence could perhaps be considered coincidental by the faithful/gullible, more "coincidences" linking Kushnir to Tilton have been discovered by The Billerico Project including photos of her and what appears to be her mother Marte (Tilton) Phillips.
Take a look at the 1991 "Primetime Live" segment exposing Tilton.
