The Heel Who Found His Faith
Johnny Lee Clary’s story reads like something out of a Southern Gothic tragedy spliced with a wrestling promo. Born June 18, 1959, in Martinez, California, Clary once strutted across the squared circle under the name Johnny Angel, a bleach-blond brawler with a manager’s sneer and a villain’s timing. But his most infamous persona didn’t unfold under the bright lights of the ring—it grew in the shadows of America’s darkest corners.
Clary wasn’t just a performer; he was, for a time, a preacher of hate. A former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, he rose to its highest rank before walking away from everything—violence, venom, and notoriety—to become a Pentecostal minister who spent his later years denouncing the very ideology he once embodied. His life wasn’t a simple heel-to-face turn—it was a fight for his soul.
From Chaos to the Klan
Johnny Clary’s early years were marred by chaos. His father’s suicide when Johnny was just 11 set off a cycle of instability that left the boy bouncing between relatives and eventually alone on the streets of East Los Angeles. There, he found belonging not in a family or a faith, but in gangs—and by 14, in the Ku Klux Klan.
He once claimed his childhood home was steeped in casual racism. His father, though not a Klansman himself, tolerated hate and reinforced its language. Violence was both inherited and learned.
The Rise of Johnny Angel
By 1983, Clary traded the hood for a different kind of mask. Trained by legendary grappler Danny Hodge, Clary stepped into the world of professional wrestling. Alongside his brother Terry—who performed as “Sugar Boy”—Johnny managed and later wrestled under the alias Johnny Angel.
He wasn’t a headliner, but he played his role to perfection: the loudmouth heel, the man fans loved to hate. There was theater in his cruelty, irony in his timing. Yet outside the ring, the hatred wasn’t scripted—it was real. Even as he cut promos for the crowd, Clary was climbing the ranks of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. By the late 1980s, he had become the Imperial Wizard, the organization’s national leader.
The Breaking Point
Fame brought attention, but not the kind anyone wanted. Clary’s appearances on shows like Oprah and Morton Downey Jr. cast him as the face of a fading movement—angry, articulate, and ultimately hollow. Behind the bluster, he later admitted, was fear and guilt.
By 1990, disillusionment cracked his armor. After years of hate and hypocrisy, he left the Klan for good. This time, he didn’t just walk away—he ran toward something else entirely: redemption.
The Redemption Tour
In a twist almost too cinematic to be true, Clary began preaching alongside Wade Watts, an African-American minister and NAACP leader who had once been his sworn enemy. The two men, who had traded insults across picket lines, now stood side by side in pulpits across America preaching unity and forgiveness.
Ordained under the Church of God in Christ, Clary became a traveling evangelist, touring the U.S. and beyond to tell his story. He appeared on Geraldo, Donahue, and Australian talk shows, turning his past into a warning—and his faith into a platform.
By 2009, he joined Jimmy Swaggart Ministries in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he taught part-time at the Family Worship Center. His new stage wasn’t lit by arena spotlights, but by the softer glow of faith-based television on the SonLife Broadcasting Network.
The Final Bell
Johnny Lee Clary’s life ended suddenly on October 21, 2014, in Baton Rouge—a heart attack claiming him at 55. In death, as in life, his story split opinion. To some, he remained a man who could never fully erase the stain of his past. To others, he was a walking testimony to transformation, proof that even the most venomous heart could be rewired.
From the ring to the robe, from hate to healing, Clary lived his life like a long, violent match—with one final, improbable comeback.