Former Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz’s wife beat the nanny after realizing she was in a compromising position

The pair appear in new interviews as part of the upcoming FX documentary The Secrets of Hillsong, based on Vanity Fair’s coverage of a series of controversies at the church, including the affair. Lentz was fired from his Hillsong post in 2020 for “moral failure” and “breach of trust.” In a lengthy post shared on his Instagram page at the time, the disgraced pastor confessed to cheating on his wife and confirmed that he had let go.

At the end of the first of four episodes, Lentz said he was “so nervous” about how he would be portrayed on the show, admitting that his situation was “a betrayal of the trust of thousands of people” in his community, he said and his wife and their children.

After talking about their early years as a couple before marrying at age 23 in the show’s second episode, Carl and Laura also reflected on how famous he became as the church exploded in pop culture fame thanks to its members like Justin Bieber.

“The pressure and the responsibility was so enormous, so quickly,” he said, adding that he was also battling an Adderall addiction at the time. “If you have problems in your life, influence, power and position will all make them worse,” Carl explained.

In October 2020, the church learned of improper text messages between Carl and another woman. According to his confession, a woman named Ranin Karim later revealed herself as an alleged lover during an appearance on Good Morning America.

“I just remember feeling like I was in an alternate universe right now? The hardest part was not looking my wife in the eye at all,” Carl said, bursting into tears as he looked back on the moment.

“It was October 25th, I remember that day. Carl was like, ‘Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?’ “As soon as he closed the door and I saw his face, my heart just got heavy,” Laura recalled, also in tears. “I knew it was something big. I didn’t know what he was going to say, but when he did, my whole world fell apart. He’s basically saying, ‘I was unfaithful to you… it was just amazing.’ “

“There are some things you can recover from and others I will never recover from. The sound of her voice, the scream she elicited, was like no other scream I’ve ever heard,” Carl said. “Nobody should go through that, especially not a woman who has a flawless character.”

Carl then told church planter Brian Houston that he was “in trouble” and “not feeling well,” so he and the Hillsong leadership all went to a Zoom meeting together. During that call, Laura suffered another devastating blow – when they began questioning her husband about his behavior towards Leona Kimes, the couple’s nanny, who was also the wife of another church minister.

“I didn’t know at that point, he hadn’t told me that part,” Laura said. “Leona came into our lives to help me with the children, be our nanny and work in the staff. Leona was paid, but she really was part of our family. I knew my children were in good hands.”

She recalled having “those little feelings” that something might be going on between them as she claimed Leona would even be at their house on Christmas Day. “I would say, ‘You can go home, you don’t have to be here.'”

“And then one night I found her in a compromising situation. I know I’m seeing something that’s not true,” she then shared. “I ran into the room and pushed and punched Carl. Then I jumped on her and hit her. Maybe I broke my little finger.”

“Something came over me and I was angry and definitely freaked out. She said, ‘I’m going to go because I can’t be with someone who thinks I did something I didn’t do,'” Laura continued. “And then that went silent, I never talked about it again, she was still in my house and around.”

Laura said things had gotten “really messy” and that she had been “in a really tortured place mentally” and felt “quite heated up” by both Carl and Leona “for a long time.” While Leona declined to be interviewed for the documentary, she previously claimed While working for the family, she was “subject to manipulation, control, bullying, abuse of power and sexual abuse.” She claimed they never had intercourse or kissed, but said she was “physically hurt by his unwanted and repeated sexual touching of my private parts.”

Lentz “vehemently” denied any abuse when she first made the claims – which he repeated in the documentary. However, he said he was “responsible for an inappropriate relationship developing in my home with someone who worked with us.”

“Any notion of abuse is categorically wrong. These were mutual decisions by adults who lied extensively, most notably to my wife,” he continued. “It’s a problem because I was a boss, that person was an employee. I am responsible for the power dynamics and their management… and I failed miserably.”

The consequences were severe and scandal broke out in the media when he was removed from his post in the church. It got so bad, he said, that he was “definitely thinking about getting off the planet.” Laura, meanwhile, felt like she’d “lost everything.”

After his release, Carl went to rehab, where he began to “relieve” the effects of the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of a family friend, something he had never spoken about before. Drawing a line between the abuse and his subsequent behavior, he said, “I was told when I was being abused, let’s not tell anyone, this will remain our secret … I would learn not to hide things from anyone.” For that reason I developed a pattern of secrecy from my parents.

“I needed this horrible low point to figure out what sexual abuse does to someone’s brain. I was a mess inside,” he continued. “The choices I’ve made, the pain they’ve caused … I’ve done these things, they’re my own, I take responsibility for them. For the rest of my life I will make amends where I can. And it’s my job, too.” to find out how the hell this happened.

Towards the end of the documentary, Lentz reveals that he now works with his wife and children at an advertising agency in Sarasota, Florida. He says they’re still “a work in progress,” adding that he’s “super grateful my circle of five is intact.”

“It was sad for me. Carl made some really bad decisions and made some really bad decisions along the way,” Laura said. “I’ve worked a lot on myself, independently of him, to be a strong woman. I don’t need him and I don’t have to stay. But I love him and I love my family, I love my kids and I love what we’re building now.”

As for why she stayed with him, she admitted, “That’s a question a lot of people have wanted to ask me since the scandal.”

“When my kids asked me that, I said, ‘Because I see your father trying and I see him changing, and if I didn’t see that – and if I don’t see that – I would leave.’ “

Episodes 1 and 2 of The Secrets of Hillsong premiere on FX on Friday, May 19 before airing on Hulu the next day. Episodes 3 and 4 will debut the following Friday.