Bishop Eddie Long will appear on Steve Harvey’s TV show Wednesday to discuss the struggles he and his family went through several years ago after the megachurch pastor was sued by four young men, who alleged he coerced them into sexual relationships.
The accusations made in 2010 against Long by Anthony Flagg, Spencer LeGrande, Jamal Parris and Maurice Robinson alleged that the bishop used his influence, trips, gifts and jobs to coerce them into sexual relations. At the time, Long vowed to fight to clear his name. In 2011, the case was settled, then dismissed.
In the Wednesday appearance, due to air at 3 p.m. on WAGA Fox 5 in Atlanta, Harvey directly asks Long whether he ever had sexual relations with any of his accusers. Long says he was “bound by court that I can’t make any statements about that.”
Harvey asks why he settled the cases.
At some point, Long says, he had to decide “am I going to win the battle or do I need to win the war? I had to make the decision to save me, save my family and save the church.”
According to a release from the Harvey show, Long talks about resilience, as described in his latest book, “The Untold Story: A Story of Adversity, Pain and Resilience.”
Long also discusses the struggles that he and his family went through, as he and his wife navigated the thought of divorce and he considered suicide.
Long, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, told his congregation earlier this year that he once considered suicide.
When it seemed like he was getting “condemned from the four corners of the Earth, I had a moment … I had a moment … I wanted to kill myself and was ready,” he said in a video that went viral.
A tearful Long said in the video that he did not take his life because “my family loved me, my church loved me … regardless of what anybody said, love lifted me and carried me.”
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