Posted Dec. 21, 2007- Bishop Thomas Weeks III, who has been charged with beating his famous ex-wife, televangelist Juanita Bynum, said that his marital problems all began after one of Bynum’s associates fabricated a tale about him being gay.

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Just days into their official marriage in July 2002, Bynum, who was now in her second marriage, filed for divorce after the rumor surfaced, Weeks told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a sprawling interview on Wednesday.

“The first divorce papers that Juanita prepared was because some adviser in her life concocted a story that I was gay – never have been one fraction of a second. She retracted that.”

But there were signs that there would be problems even before those rumors emerged, he said.

“The first word she said to me after we got married is she felt like she was stuck ... She wanted to make an adjustment into marriage. She wanted to be married a year before we told people. She wanted to keep her base. She is the queen of ‘No More Sheets,’ so how would all the women who support her ministry, who are single, feel about her getting married.”

But someone put a note on her car saying that “they knew we were married,” so Bynum announced a wedding date on TBN, a Christian network.

Then, in April 2003, he and Prophetess Bynum had public marriage. “Over 80 million people watched the wedding [...,” Weeks said. “I think the wedding gave a very tasteful presentation of her desire to present a wedding at the level of Juanita Bynum.The major TV wedding that was on TBN …. It was Juanita's desire to do it that way.”

Over the next four years or so, the relationship between Weeks and the woman he met in 1998, the same year his first wife divorced him, was on shaky ground.

What does Weeks say about charges of abuse, including the incident in August? Go to the next page to read more.

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But he said he never abused her, as alleged by Bynum, who has filed for divorce again.

“Certainly there was heated fellowship,” he said. “... I never hit or did anything to physically harm her. I have been the one that has been physically abused. I kept it quiet and silent for over 90 days. I have been struck on the face and in the head ... with a fist. I have been choked ... We had gone to counseling.”

So what happened on Aug. 21, when a bellman at an Atlanta hotel reported that he beat and stomped his wife? “I did not choke my wife; I did not beat my wife; I did not kick nor stomp her,” said the 40-year-old pastor of Global Destiny Church near Atlanta.

“A woman said to be kicked, punched, choked and brutally beaten by her husband, does she show up at the hospital four hours later ... and refuse to let the police take official pictures of all of the bruises?”

He said he hopes he and Bynum can be friends, but it is unlikely that they will be reunited.

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