The Vanity Fair Lunch Interview

Five things we didn't know about Joel Osteen

We thought we knew everything about Houston's Joel Osteen. But in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Osteen lunches with writer John Heilpern and reveals several nuggets about himself that we haven't read anywhere else.

The story is not on the magazine's Web site, but here are the interesting parts:

1. When the waiter in a New York restaurant tells Osteen that his chicken comes with a bed of baby bok choy and sesame seeds, he looks dubious. "I don't know what bok choy is," he says. He gets unnamed vegetables instead.

2. There is no cross displayed in Lakewood Church. "When my dad founded our church, he used either a globe or a map of the world behind him. It was symbolic of what Christ said: To go forth and preach hope to the world. We believe in the cross, but we just continued with the globe."

3. He hasn't sinned very much. "I've never done anything you would call 'terrible.' I haven't done drugs. Victoria's the only girl I've dated," he said, referring to his wife of 22-years. "I'm probably squeaky clean — I don't have to say it."

4. Lakewood takes in $75 million a year in tithes and donations. But Osteen says he doesn't take a salary from church revenue. His income comes from his books. The reported advance for his previous best-seller, Become a Better You, was $13 million.

5. He doesn't see a conflict between his prosperity and God's teachings. "I think people in my congregation would say, 'Wow! God has blessed Joel and Victoria!' I think the people I'm talking to would say that if God did it for me, He can do it for them."

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”