Ex-Wife of Popular Christian Internet Pastor Greg Locke says he Spit on her and Hit her, Shares Text Messages he Sent Cursing her

Greg Locke is a conservative pastor from an evangelical church in Tennessee. He’s best known for his popular Facebook presence, which features selfie videos in which he delivers sermons like the one below given about Target’s gender-neutral bathrooms in which he details his questioning of a customer service representatives (which received 18 million views.) He also flipped out when someone made a donation in his name to Planned Parenthood.

But Locke’s personal life is in shambles, as he is divorced from his wife, with whom he has four children including two who were adopted. She is now living in a women’s shelter in another state, while he says that she is “mentally ill.”

He’s also fending off charges that he is an adulterer, who has started seeing his ex-wife’s best friend. Other Christians have attacked him, calling him a failure for getting divorced, claiming he “sent his wife away” and alleging that he has a new girlfriend who was the church secretary.

A new report cited by Patheos’ Friendly Atheist column shows the situation may be even worse than is known.

The report follows a Christian blogger who met with Locke’s estranged wife Melissa at a restaurant in Georgia, where she now lives in a women’s shelter.

Among the text messages shared with the blogger were messages in which he called her “a deceitful b*tch” and suggested she was putting on weight.

(Warning: explicit language)

Melissa Locke also said that her now ex-husband had hit her twice, spit on her and smashed her phone.

“The vitriol with which Greg Locke addressed his wife of 20 years in these text messages is unbecoming of any man, especially a Christian pastor,” the blogger said.

Melissa Locke also told the blogger that Greg Locke “has adulterous plans for his church secretary, Tai McGee,” who is Melissa’s best friend.

Via Facebook, Locke maintains that it’s all made-up.

“To read such vicious lies and out of context things about a situation people are ignorant of is completely disabling,” he writes. “Of course we said crazy, regretful and angry things in messages. That’s what happens when a relationship is going through such bitter unraveling and emotions are in high gear.”