Selena Gomez has reportedly quit Hillsong after a cheating cheating scandal involving a celebrity pastor. Photo / Getty Images
Selena Gomez has reportedly quit Hillsong after a cheating cheating scandal involving a celebrity pastor. Photo / Getty Images
Selena Gomez has reportedly quit Hillsong following pastor Carl Lentz's cheating scandal.
The Daily Telegraph first revealed that the singer, 28, has turned her back on the church after being an avid follower for years.
Sources claim she has become "bitterly disillusioned" with the church since her break up withex-boyfriend Justin Bieber, who is closely associated with it.
It was Carl Lentz's affair that was reportedly the final straw for Gomez.
"At one stage she adored Carl ... she, Brian, his daughter Laura and Justin were a team, really close. Now she doesn't want anything to do with Hillsong anymore," an insider told The Daily Telegraph.
"She doesn't identify with Hillsong any longer."
Lentz, 42, was kicked out of the popular church last month after a number of "moral failures", that were later revealed as him cheating on his wife.
He and his wife Laura, who have been married for 17 years and share three children, moved from the east coast of the US to Los Angeles late last month in an attempt to salvage their marriage.
Lentz had run Hillsong's megachurch in New York City and had been popular among its many celebrity adherents including Justin Bieber and his wife Hailey and NBA player Kevin Durant.
New York fashion designer Ranin Karim, 34, went public days after he was fired, admitting she was the one who had been with Lentz, however it's since been alleged she wasn't the only one.
"It was more than one affair, they were significant. And at least some bad moral behaviour had gone back historically, but not necessarily those affairs," Hillsong founder Brian Houston said on a recorded meeting, which was later leaked to the Daily Mail.
Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez's ex-boyfriend, developed a close friendship with Carl Lentz. Photo / Getty Images
In the meeting, which took place around November 19 and included a number of church executives and top donors, Houston alleged Lentz's career as a Hillsong pastor came crashing down when a staffer working in New York found something "compromising" on his computer.
"I can honestly say before God the first time I heard any moral complaint against Carl was when (Hillsong East Coast chief operating officer Tolu Badders) contacted me," Houston said.
"Tolu had a conversation with one of the staff members, and that staff member had found a very compromising chain of text messages on Carl's laptop or computer. And so that person went straight to Tolu. And Tolu, to her credit, the first thing she did was call me."
