Ex-Hillsong Pastor Carl Lentz’s Wife ‘Freaked Out’ After Finding Him in ‘Compromising Position’ with Nanny

Laura Lentz, wife of ex-Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz, once had a physical altercation with her husband and their nanny after catching them in a “compromising position,” she says in a new documentary series.

FX’s The Secrets of Hillsong, which chronicles the scandals of the famous megachurch, features the first interviews with the couple since they were forced out of the church in 2020 for Carl’s “moral failures,” with the former pastor later admitting to infidelity.

In the series’ second episode, which airs Friday, Laura revealed her shock upon first learning from her husband that he’d been unfaithful. “It was Oct. 25 [2020], I remember that day. Carl was like, ‘Hey, can I talk to you for a second?’ As soon as he shut the door…my heart just dropped,” she recalled. “He basically said, ‘I’ve been unfaithful to you.'”

On a Zoom call with the couple, board members and founder Brian Houston, who went on to resign in 2022 amid complaints that he behaved inappropriately towards two women, questioned Carl, now 44, about his relationship with the Lentz family’s nanny, Leona Kimes, also a church member.

Still, Laura said she had suspected something was going on. “I’d sometimes get these little feelings. And then one night I found them in a compromising position,” she said. “I ran into the room and I shoved Carl and hit him and then I jumped on top of her and I punched her. Something came over me. I was angry and I definitely freaked out.”

Laura Lentz said that Kimes denied there was something going on between her and Carl, and that afterwards, they “never talked about it again.”

After their exit from Hillsong, though they struggled to move past what had happened, the couple ultimately stayed together and worked through the fallout of Carl’s betrayal.