After seeing Tammy Faye, the biographical musical about the late American evangelist Tammy Faye Messner, her son, Jay Bakker, hopped on a video call with Elton John, who wrote the music for it.
Jay, 48, recalled in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE what the “Candle in the Wind” singer, 77, asked him on that call, and he revealed what he thinks of the stage production about his famous mother’s life as a traveling preacher’s wife to his dad, Jim Bakker.
“[Elton] was like, ‘Have I caught your mom’s spirit?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, you did,’ ” Jay, a pastor and author, told PEOPLE at an Oct. 2 dress rehearsal in New York City before Tammy Faye’s Oct. 19 Broadway debut.
Jay likened seeing the Broadway musical to “getting hit by a freight train.”
“It’s like having all your trauma in a musical,” he explained. “Almost like, ‘Here’s some mushrooms. Let’s relive the trauma.’ … It’s surreal. There’s …