Photo courtesy of John Gray on Instagram
Pastor John Gray is defending himself after he was accused of cheating on his wife again.
Gray pleaded his case during an appearance on the latest episode of Social Society, as reported by Bossip.
Rumors of the pastor’s transgressions against his wife Aventer have followed him for years. He claims building “trust equity” with his wife was his top priority over mending fences at the church. Gray is currently the pastor of Relentless Church and an associate pastor at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church.
“Building trust with a congregation is secondary to building trust equity with my wife,” he told host Kendall Kyndall. “When you attempt to throw away your marriage because of your own pain, your own shame, your own sexual repression, things that happened in childhood—you’ve gotta dig deeper than ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m sorry can be genuine, but if you don’t do the internal work, you’re gonna come back and do it again.”
Gray also denied sleeping with anyone except for his wife.
“There were all these things swirling–‘he’s slept with this and that’— the only woman I’ve been inside of is my wife,” Gray said. “Let’s get that straight.”
That’s way too much information. The “holy man” added he was merely guilty of “trusting people with the deepest parts of my pain that didn’t deserve it.”
It’s the second mea culpa in about a year. In August 2020, he apologized to his wife and Lakewood’s congregation after one of his alleged side chicks aired him out on YouTube, according to Greenville News. He didn’t provide any details about his connection to the woman.
“Aventer, I am sorry for the pain I have caused you, and my prayer is that the life I live from this moment will be one worthy of the love that you extended that our family receives from. I am grateful for you and our children,” Gray said.
“To my church, I am sorry,” he added. “You’ve gone through enough – from cars to meetings with leaders that have caused great pain and deep division among political ideologies to one thing after another. I want to tell you I’m sorry.”
Before that, Gray confessed to an “emotional affair” in 2019.
There’s a pattern here, sir.