Joni Lamb’s Own Will Named Her Estranged Son as Heir — Then She Didn’t Call Him to Say Goodbye
On May 7, 2026, Joni Lamb, the co-founder and president of the Daystar Television Network, passed away in her home in Bedford, Texas. As one of the most recognizable faces in global Christian broadcasting, her death sent ripples through the evangelical world. But the most jarring statement regarding her passing did not come from a press release or a televised memorial. It came hours later, from her own daughter-in-law.
In a public online post, Susie Lamb wrote a sentence that defies the standard conventions of grief and family:
“We weren’t informed of anything. We were down the road, but weren’t given a call to say goodbye.”
They were not across the country. They were not estranged by geography. They were simply down the road. Yet, the phone never rang.
This silence is not just a tragic family footnote; it is the culmination of one of the darkest, most convoluted stories in modern televangelism. Just five years prior, in 2021, Daystar co-founder Marcus Lamb wrote a formal directive outlining the future of the multi-million-dollar empire he built with Joni. He did not pass the torch to a corporate board member or an outside executive. He explicitly named his son, Jonathan Lamb, to lead Dayar after Joni.
The man Marcus Lamb chose to inherit a global Christian network was the exact same son who was left waiting down the road while his mother took her final breaths. What transpired between the written directive of 2021 and the deafening silence of 2026 is a masterclass in institutional preservation, family warfare, and the hidden mechanics of religious empires.