In 1994, boxing champion Evander Holyfield was standing in front of a crowd gathered to witness the miracles of televangelist Benny Hinn. In front of Hinn and the crowd, Holyfield asked God for healing. He had been diagnosed with a malfunctioning left ventricle in his heart and was struggling to pump blood.

A wave from Hinn's hand accomplished what countless heavyweights could not, knocking Holyfield to the ground. Holyfield reported feeling a warm sensation in his chest as he fell. He heard Hinn turn to the enthusiastic crowd and say, “God is telling me right now: He is completely healing Holyfield's heart.”

By healing Evander Holyfield's heart on stage, Benny Hinn enabled the boxer to later face Mike Tyson. Holyfield defeated Mike Tyson a year later.

When Holyfield returned to doctors, he found that his heart was indeed pumping again. The doctors reported a misdiagnosis, but Holyfield attributed his return to the ring solely to Benny Hinn. Holyfield agreed to write a check for $265,000 that Hinn needed to “cover the expenses of the crusade.”

This was not the first time Benny Hinn performed a miracle, nor was it the first time he was generously rewarded for it. Millions of people filled stadiums, and millions more believed that Hinn demonstrated his God-given healing power by watching his “This Is Your Day” program.

Benny Hinn was a God prophet in the eyes of his followers. But was this faith healer really a fraud?

Benny Hinn Becomes a Healer

Benny Hinn was born in 1952 in Jaffa, Israel, as Toufik Benedictus Hinn. In 1968, he moved to Toronto with his seven siblings, and Hinn's divine career began there. Despite his family's opposing views, Hinn entered a religious environment and converted to Born Again Christianity at the age of 18.

Hinn claimed to have been a social outcast for much of his early life, but journalists later debunked this self-created myth. This would be one of the millions of little lies Hinn would present to shape his personality.

At 21, he went to see faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman perform live on stage. There, he helped a disabled elderly woman and claimed to have been healed by Kuhlman, watching her “conversion.” Hinn was greatly influenced by Kuhlman's methods and shaped much of his career around them.

FlickrBenny Hinn claims that his healing ability came to him at age 11 or 18. The details of his past even vary in Hinn's own narratives.

From his home in Toronto, Hinn began broadcasting his first healing sessions on local channels. When he traveled to Florida, he married his first wife, Suzanne, the daughter of a pastor, and founded his first evangelical congregation in 1983.

His fame exploded. By 1990, Hinn's “This Is Your Day” program was airing daily on Christian TV networks.

Horrific Faith in Benny Hinn

Benny Hinn was a global sensation for much of the 80s and 90s. Here is a recording from his work in South Africa in the 1990s.

However, not everyone shared Holyfield's great experience with Hinn.

A woman, Ella Peppard, sought healing from Hinn, but he did not just fail to heal her. He caused her death.

While Peppard was waiting in line, Benny Hinn struck another man on the head and shouted, “He has been spiritually knocked down!” The man fell back and toppled onto Peppard, causing her hip to break.

Hinn's team did not call an ambulance, and Peppard, believing that Hinn's healing powers would heal her, did not see the need to go to a doctor. The fracture in her leg worsened and clogged her veins, and 15 days later, Peppard passed away.

Tony Bock/Toronto Star via Getty ImagesThe very wealthy Benny Hinn, who said, “I don’t take a penny from this donation,” said while passing white buckets to the crowd at Maple Leaf Gardens in Canada.

Peppard was not the only person to die after Benny Hinn's revival. In 2001, an HBO documentary crew followed seven people whom Hinn claimed to have healed and watched to see what happened to them. In every case, Hinn's healing powers were short-lived.

One of the women they followed had believed so much that Benny Hinn had healed her of lung cancer that she refused to ever go back to her doctor. However, the cancer was still there, and because it went untreated, it killed her within a year.

Director Anthony Thomas came to this grim conclusion:

“If I had seen miracles, I would have been happy to announce it, but looking back, I think it did more harm than good to Christianity, even more than the most committed atheist.”

God's Power or Placebo Effect?

In 1999, The Fifth Estate managed to interview a man who was hired to select people whom Benny Hinn healed on stage. He explained the process they used:

“They do a quick interview to prevent really sick people from coming on stage and they ask them: ‘What do you have?’ ‘Oh, I have rheumatoid arthritis in my left shoulder. I can't lift it...’ ‘Can you lift your shoulder? Because if you can't lift it, you can't come on stage.’”

The only people allowed to go on stage with Hinn were those who had psychosomatic issues or physical pains that could be temporarily alleviated with enthusiasm in front of their religious experience.

To test the information given on Fifth Estate, the crew tried to bring a little girl with cerebral palsy on stage using a hidden camera.

Security personnel surrounded the sick little girl and physically prevented her from approaching the man who claimed he could walk with a limp.

Heavenly Pleasures

Officially, Benny Hinn runs a non-profit religious charity. He claims that every penny of the 100 million dollars he brings in each year goes to the church and healing services.

However, Hinn owns two multi-million dollar mansions, a small fleet of Mercedes Benz cars, and a private chef.

The Fifth Estate also uncovered Hinn's hotel bills during a stop in London. He had racked up over 4,000 dollars in hotel bills for a single night and left 2,000 dollars in tips for concierges and doormen.

Hinn also has a private jet paid for by his followers. In 2006, he sent them a letter saying, “I want my six thousand precious partners to speak to dear God to sow a seed of 1,000 dollars within sixty days.”

YouTubeA typical prayer session with Benny Hinn.

The 6,000,000 dollars he requested did not reflect the full cost of the jet. It would only cover part of the down payment.

These expenses were enough to raise some questions. In 2007, Senator Charles Grassley launched an investigation into Hinn and five other non-profit religious leaders. These leaders had registered to maintain their funding with tax-exempt status and lived in multi-million dollar homes.

Hinn was one of the few to submit his financial records - but before doing so, he said he needed a year to prepare them for the Senate hearing. As a tax-exempt registered religious charity, the Senate could not rush him.

Ultimately, the records they obtained did not provide enough information to bring charges against Hinn. Grassley had to close his investigation.

Benny Hinn's Nephew Speaks

Exposing Charlatans/YouTubeBenny Hinn's nephew Costi Hinn during an interview.

In recent years, Benny Hinn's nephew Costi Hinn has publicly explained what it was like to follow the faith healer on his tours around the world and benefit from his fame.

“We were living a dream. Expensive hotels, cars, travel. The biggest one was ‘Jesus provided all of this.'”

As a child, Costi Hinn stated in an interview with Faithwire in 2018 that he considered this luxurious lifestyle as something earned by their families. They were servants of God, he believed, and were being rewarded with riches from heaven.

However, his faith was shaken when he first saw a young girl who his uncle promised to heal never get better.

“They took her to the back. We prayed for her, my uncle prayed for her. That night I was crying, ‘God, why didn’t you heal her?! Everyone should have been healed.'”

For Costi Hinn, this was enough to shake his faith. He left his family's Charismatic Christianity brand and carved out his own path away from the mansions acquired through religious donations.

Millions of people still attend Benny Hinn's revivals, hoping for him to bring them the Holy Spirit and heal their ailments, and countless people claim that Hinn's powers truly healed them.

Benny Hinn has never been proven to be a fraud, and despite the IRS investigating him multiple times, no charges have ever been brought against him.