Mike Jones, the Denver man who brought national evangelical leader Pastor Ted Haggard to his knees, released a video yesterday criticizing New Life Church for paying “hush money” in a now-revealed tryst with a young male church member and ignoring his claims of more victims. He also wants an apology from the church for being treated like “a useless piece of meat.”
Here’s a work-safe transcript:
[Jones, in a black t-shirt, stands against a plain, undecorated light beige / white background and speaks facing directly into the camera for the entire video. There are no other props except a brief cut-away near the beginning, to the cover of Jones’ book I Had To Say Something: The Art of Ted Haggard’s Fall]
My name is Mike Jones, I am the man that exposed pastor Ted Haggard. [cut to the cover of a copy of Jones’ book] And I – I wrote a book that was titled “I Had To Say Something, The Art of Ted Haggard’s Fall” [cut back to Jones] Now if you think I just came up with that title ‘cause it was catchy … that’s not why I did it. I had to say something. And I wanted people to understand what brought me to that point in my life, and that decision.
I knew that there were others, others that I could not publicly out, they had to do it themselves but they were scared. Some of their parents knew … about what was going on at the church and some of the parents just wanted to turn a blind eye to it. [heavy sigh] I also realize … that … it was gonna be just probably me out there alone – uh – facing the press, facing the criticism. Now, when, Brady Boyd took over as pastor of New Life church, I contacted him. I wanted to talk to him about these other young men that were coming to me – with their stories. This was serious. And you know, pastor Boyd refused to meet with me.
With all the recent news that comin’ out right now, I hope people understand why I had to say something, because if I hadn’t said something – this would still be going on at the church – and would probably be even worse.
I’ve always been a bit disappointed in the gay community and some gay groups. [heavy sigh] I have been ostracized by the gay community. I contacted groups like the … Human Rights Campaign when my world was coming apart, for help. They refused to even return my phone call.
In Denver I have been spit on, I’ve been yelled at — I’ve been called just … a whore. And I .. would be lying if I didn’t say that hurt.
But I am sick of people also making decisions based on headlines. D’ya know just the other day the new – um – the L.A. Times printed something about the upcoming documentary coming out and stated that Ted Haggard and Mike Jones did drugs together. I never did drugs with Ted Haggard. Never.
Ted Haggard has said it’s a good thing Mike Jones spoke up, otherwise .. he would probably be a drug addict and he would probably continue his deceitful path. The reason I am saying this is because no one else will! So if you wanna continue with your nastiness towards me, and your jokes, I’m gonna ask you to look in the mirror and ask yourself “What’ve I done to make a difference in this world.”
I risked everything … and I paid for it. I lost my privacy, I suffered financially, I lost my home, I lost friends, I lost family over this. I cannot speak for others, but I know what my intentions were and my motive. I wanted to expose the injustice … and the hypocrisy. That’s why I did it, I didn’t do it for fame and fortune.
But I will tell you right now most of my anger is at New Life Church. For over two years I have suffered being alone (?) out there, taking all the heat for all that’s going on, when all this time they knew there was others … and they paid hush money to this man to be quiet when they coulda admitted it there was others right at that moment and that woulda helped me out so much instead of putting me out there to face it all on my own.
I am so angry at the church. They stated at the time that Mike Jones was the only man out there that had … relations with Ted Haggard … and it’s wrong and it was a lie … and they owe me an apology.
New Life Church has hurt me deeply — and I guess, because they think I was just escorting, that I’m just a useless piece of meat out there and it has hurt .. me deeply. Thank you for listening.
[Fade to black, with trailer stating Jones can be contacted at the given AOL email address]
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