What Is Peter Popoff Net Worth

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Peter Popoff is a German-American televangelist and faith healer with a net worth of $10 million. He was born in July 1946 in West Berlin, Germany, and moved to the United States with his family when he was a child. He went to Chaffey College and later studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Financial Details

In the early 1980s, he started a television ministry and hosted a weekly national program. Over the years, he wrote 11 books. In 1984, he made headlines when he asked people to donate money to help smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union. However, people started questioning how he spent the money. Around that time, he claimed someone had robbed his ministry’s headquarters and later asked for more donations to repair the damages.

Popoff told his audience that he could name their illnesses and home addresses because of divine messages. But skeptic James Randi exposed his secret—Popoff was actually using an in-ear receiver to get the information. This shocking discovery aired on The Tonight Show.

In 1987, Popoff declared bankruptcy because nearly 800 people had claims against him. Before that, he was making close to $4 million every year. After disappearing for a while, he returned in 1998 and started marketing his ministry to an African American audience on BET.

By 2005, his ministry made over $23 million, and he personally earned almost $1 million. In 2006, he changed Peter Popoff Ministries from a business into a tax-exempt religious organization.

His story even inspired the Steve Martin movie Leap of Faith. In 2007, he bought a $4.5 million home in Bradbury, California. Over the years, he has also owned luxury cars like a Mercedes-Benz and a Porsche.

In Popular Culture

The 1989 movie Fletch Lives made fun of Peter Popoff’s radio transmitter trick in a funny scene.

The death metal band Death got inspiration from Popoff for their 1990 album Spiritual Healing. The album cover shows a priest who looks just like Popoff, healing a person in a wheelchair.

The 1992 movie Leap of Faith, starring Steve Martin, was based on Popoff’s fake ministry. The movie showed how televangelists like him use tricks to make people believe they have special powers. In 2012, Leap of Faith became a Broadway musical and even got nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical.

Popoff also inspired a character in the 2012 thriller Red Lights. In the film, the character tricks audiences by using a hidden earpiece to receive secret information, just like Popoff did. The movie even includes a line almost exactly like the one Popoff’s wife, Elizabeth, once said: “Hello Petey, can you hear me? If you can’t, you’re in trouble.”

James Randi’s investigation of Popoff’s tricks was also shown in season 21, episode seven of Mysteries at the Museum.