Where Billy Graham led, the Kardashian clan has happily followed
Love him or loathe him, few would deny that Billy Graham, the US Christian televangelist, who has just died at 99 years old, was a “character”.
Graham was the original Bible thumper, who filled stadiums, and had enough clout to fraternise with presidents and royalty (including the Queen). Then there was the grotty, depressing stuff – being caught on tape making antisemitic remarks on the Nixon tapes (Graham swiftly backpedalled); his tireless anti-communist babble.
If Graham was a kind of religious “rock star” (global, populist, bombastic), the only things missing were the groupies; famously, he had a rule never to be left in a room alone with any woman apart from his wife. Legacy-wise, it gets yet more interesting. No slouch at harnessing what was then the cutting-edge medium (television) to spread his message, Graham’s instincts were on a par with the foremost social media stars of today. Lipgloss or God: it doesn’t matter what you’re hawking – it’s how you hawk it.
In the week that Kylie Jenner’s complaint about Snapchat helped wipe £1bn off its share value, it doesn’t seem that odd to suggest that, where viral skills were concerned, Graham was the prototype-Kardashian of his era.
•Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist