The former wife of televangelist preacher Jim Bakker, Tammy Faye Messner used the then-still considerable spotlight of Larry King's show — on which she had appeared numerous times — to declare that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer. (She had previously been diagnosed with colon cancer, which later went into remission.) By the time of her death, Messner — who had spent a big chunk of her life as part of her husband's PTL (Praise the Lord) empire — had become somewhat of a gay icon for her support of gay rights.