Yahoo News:
oth sides have confirmed a sexual component to the business relationship between Jerry and Becki Falwell and the young Fontainebleau Miami Beach employee they befriended on vacation. The hotel meeting spawned a “pool boy” saga with threads that included a corporate-jet getaway to meet future president Donald Trump and a hunt for racy photos in Miami by Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Jerry Falwell Jr. described an affair between Becki Falwell and Giancarlo Granda, whom they met when the 20-year-old from the Miami area was working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau. He claimed Granda asked for money in exchange for not revealing details about their relationship.
The Falwell disclosure Sunday was timed to preempt Granda’s own exclusive interview with Reuters released Monday, in which Granda confirmed a sexual relationship with Becki Falwell but said Jerry Falwell was watching nearby during the encounters.
The published account corroborates for the first time at least some of the innuendo that’s swirled around the “pool boy” story, which went public in 2018 over the mystery of how a national evangelical leader wound up in a venture with a young man from Miami to operate a cut-rate hostel on South Beach.
Both Falwell and Granda now describe the encounters as destructive to them. On Monday, the Washington Post and other outlets reported Falwell was stepping down from Liberty University a day after he released a statement describing severe weight loss and an “emotional toll” from the affair. Later reports had Falwell denying he had resigned, but by Tuesday morning his resignation was confirmed.
