Pastor Jamal Bryant of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church didn’t hold back when Kandi Burruss brought up his headline-making 2016 scandal on her podcast Speak On It, openly dishing deets on his divorce from #RHOP’s Gizelle Bryant.
With surprising candor, the 54-year-old pastor revealed that he felt like a complete “narcissist” when news of his fathering a child with a parishioner at his former church while still married to Gizelle came to light.
“Poverty is not always money. Poverty is the mismanagement of time, and, so, people make priority what should be secondary. You have to be very careful on the different forms of narcissism,” Bryant told Kandi during their raw interview about the consequences that unfolded after he admitted to welcoming his son, John Karston Bryant, with a church member named Latoya Shawntee Odom in 2016 (jump to the 30:00 minute mark.)
“Narcissism is a fancy word for selfish..I wasn’t thinking on how will this affect my daughter? How would this affect my marriage? How does it affect my ministry? It was just, ‘What will this do for me?’”
The fallout from the infidelity confession made Pastor Jamal Bryant experience suicidal ideations.
Bryant shared with Kandi that his career was soaring when the scandal broke. He had grown his congregation to 10,000 members at Empowerment Temple in Baltimore—the church he founded in 2000—and had been happily married to Gizelle since 2002. But at the peak of his ministry, the revelation of his infidelity sent shockwaves through both his personal and professional life, threatening to unravel everything he had built. Gizelle filed for divorce in 2009 due to his infidelity, though they reconciled in 2019. The former couple share three daughters.
Reflecting on the fallout, Bryant said he wore a “tattoo of shame” for years, a feeling that hit home when a TSA agent in Fort Lauderdale quietly told him, “I heard about the baby. Keep your head up,” after the story made national headlines. His congregation also began to “shrink,” following the news. The backlash was so intense, he admitted, that he struggled with suicidal thoughts during the dark moment.
“I felt like the walls were coming in and I didn’t have anywhere to go.”
When Kandi asked the Baptist pastor how he made it through the storm, Bryant said flat out: “Prayer was my oxygen.”
He continued:
“I needed to be in an alternative space. When you have to disconnect from the reality you’re in, where you almost have to have an outer body experience, and step back and see yourself.”
The religious leader, who joined New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in 2018, said ultimately he learned to forgive himself.
“What I did is not who I am, and it’s easier said in a healthier, healed, whole space than while you’re hemorrhaging. In that hemorrhaging space, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to breathe again.”
Despite efforts to repair their relationship, Gizelle and the pastor ended their marriage for good in 2021. Bryant later tied the knot with Dr. Karri Turner in 2024. Notably, during BravoCon 2023, Gizelle opened up about why she finally decided to walk away from the relationship with the well-known pastor.
“He and I have known each other for 20-plus years. We have three beautiful daughters. At the same time … he was in a different mental space,” the reality TV vet said at the time. “So I felt like if ever [we] were going to get the family back together, that was the time to try. It didn’t work out. But I think I would have regretted not trying.”
What do you think of Pastor Jamal Bryant’s revelation on Speak On It?
