KEY POINTS

  • Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston claimed Carl Lentz allegedly had multiple affairs in a recording, a report says
  • A Hillsong director allegedly said they were working on a severance package for Lentz
  • Lentz was fired from the megachurch in November in response to the revelation of his extramarital affair

Disgraced Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz allegedly had multiple affairs but may still get a payoff after being fired from the megachurch, a leaked recording reveals.

Lentz, who served as Justin Bieber's one-time spiritual adviser, admitted in November that he cheated on his wife Laura after he was axed from his job. Now, Page Six said it obtained a recording where Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston claimed Lentz had many affairs prior to his scandal.

In the alleged bombshell recording of a Nov. 19 conference between church donors and execs, Houston can be heard saying that a staffer found Lentz’s “very compromising” text messages on his laptop and confronted him.

“[We] drove right across town to talk to Carl and confront him and that was the beginning of the process we are at now,” Houston said, per Page Six. “When we talk about an affair. These issues were more than one affair, they were significant. And at least some bad moral behavior had gone back historically, but not necessarily those affairs.”

“If it was just about a moral failure perhaps it would have been possible to … work our way through it and have a period of restoration … But the nature of where my relationship was with Carl already … and then [to] add the significant nature of the moral issues meant that I believed and our global board believed [the only option] was to terminate Carl,” he added in the alleged recording.

The Hillsong founder allegedly went on to say that they had been having problems with Lentz long before he was fired. Houston noted that the disgraced pastor was “a difficult man” to have a conversation with since “it was always defensive” and that the blame would be put on the other person.

“They were not easy meetings and I already at the point at the end of summer that I felt like Carl and Laura’s time in New York was coming to an end … not just general narcissistic behavior, manipulating, mistreating people … I think sometimes other hurtful things, the breaches of trust connected to lying, constantly lying … basically, broken trust,” Houston said.

Hillsong director George Aghajanian also allegedly said in the recording that they were working on a severance package for Lentz, but the amount has not yet been finalized.

Lentz's wife, Laura, resigned from her position in Hillsong after the church fired her husband. The two are now going to therapy sessions in an attempt to rebuild trust and are working on their marriage, Page Six earlier reported.

Carl Lentz
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 13: Justin Bieber and Carl Lentz attend 2017 Aces Charity Celebrity Basketball Game at Madison Square Garden on August 13, 2017 in New York City. Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images