The Truth Behind Gwen Shamblins Death In A Plane Crash

Publish date: 2024-08-14

American novelist Gwen Shamblin Lara founded the Remnant Fellowship and the Weigh Down Workshop, two Christian diet programs.

She continued on to Memphis State University to finish her graduation.

She spent five years working at Memphis State University as a registered dietician, consultant, and faculty member.

She also worked for the city’s Tennessee Department of Health.

On May 29, 2021, shortly after takeoff, Gwen and six church leaders, including her husband Joe and son-in-law Brandon Hannah, were killed when their 1982 Cessna Citation 501 private jet crashed.

It was headed for Palm Beach, Florida, and crashed into Percy Priest Lake close to Smyrna, Tennessee.

Early Life & Education – Who Is Gwen Shamblin?

Ms. Gwen Shamblin Lara was born on February 18, 1955, under the horoscope sign of Aquarius.

Lara earned a dietetics undergraduate degree and a food and nutrition master’s degree with a focus on biochemistry at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Lara was raised by Church of Christ members in their residence.

Family Members Of Gwen Shamblin

She had eight grandchildren in total and two children.

Gabriele, Garland, Gates, and Christian are the names of the four children her son Michael and his wife Erin have as their offspring.

Grace, Gweneth, Gloria, and Charles Grantham were her other four grandchildren born to her daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Brandon Hannah.

Height, Weight & Physical Appearance

Although she was 5 feet 3 inches tall, Gwen Shamblin’s body weight is still unknown. Additionally, she had blonde hair and blue eyes.

Why Does Gwen Shamblin Have Big Hair?

The dietitian had shorter, blonde hair that was naturally curled inward to shape her face in the 1990s. 

Over the course of the decade, she wore hair wigs. The haircut started to become taller, nevertheless, in the 2000s.

Gwen Shamblin’s hair appears to have been purposely arranged. 

However, she has never spoken about why her hair is so thick and long. 

She had styled her hair in the year 2021 in the most extreme of ways, giving her a godlike appearance.

She sported weird-looking volumized hairstyles with enormous heights positioned straight above her head.

Professional Career

Due to her weight, Gwen Shamblin Lara had previously experienced many difficulties. 

Later, in 1986, she established the Weigh Down Workshop. It is a weight loss program without calorie counting, workout schedules, or weigh-ins. 

Weigh Down Workshop was created by her as she was working on her master’s degree. As part of a counseling facility, she held the first lesson in a mall in Memphis, Tennessee. 

She started presenting the show at Bellevue Baptist Church in the 1990s.

Short classes were also conducted in retail and non-religious contexts for the program. The course was a 12-week guided seminar. 

By 1994, the software had been available in around 600 congregations across 35 US states. 

Additionally, the initiative had expanded to about 5,000 congregations by July 1996. Workshops were being held in roughly eight churches in Britain in December 1996. 

Some participants in the United States also hosted meetings in their homes. Weigh Down Workshop eventually employed 40 people by 1996. Likewise, Franklin, Tennessee, saw the construction of a headquarters.

The Workshop had more than 21,000 classes with more than 250,000 students worldwide in August 1998. 

It should be emphasized that classes were held throughout the United States and in Canada, and Europe. 

Moving on, she received criticism for promoting Christianity while growing her company.

Nashville In 2001, WTVF, a CBS station, looked into how Weigh Down Workshop organizers used money. 

She said that taxes were paid on half of the Workshop earnings. As a result, the program was updated to include the other half.

In Franklin, Tennessee, Shamblin established the Remnant Fellowship Church in 1999. The 40 acres of the church’s structure were finally finished in 2004.

Later, it was discovered that none of Shamblin’s multimillion-dollar holdings were bequeathed to the church in her legacy. 

Shamblin also released The Weigh Down Diet in 19997. It is a book that counseled readers to turn to their faith in order to curb their appetites. 

Diet teaches one to decrease food quantities in half and only eat when truly hungry. It also encourages one to convert the love of food to the love of God.

Shamblin also wrote Rise Above and Exodus Devotional, respectively, in 2000 and 2002.

In consequence, Thomas Nelson Publishers decided not to release her subsequent book. Sadly, she was taken from the Women of Faith website, and several of her staff members left. 

Later, she appeared on shows like Dateline, BBC, A Current Affair, and The View (Australia). She also appeared in publications like Woman’s Day, Family Circle, and Good Housekeeping. 

She also appeared on DaySide, The Early Show, Larry King Life on CNN, The Today Show, and others. 

Marriage & Children

The family that Gwen Shamblin Lara belonged to was Christian. David Shamblin and Gwen were wed from 1978 to 2018.

Michael Shamblin, a son, and Elizabeth Shamblin Hannah, a daughter, were the couple’s two offspring.

How Did Gwen Shamblin Meet Joe Lara? 

Lara met Shamblin while working as a handyman in Tennessee after her divorce from 

Pavlovich.

Gwen wed Joe Lara, an American actor, on August 18, 2018. From his first marriage to Natasha Pavlovich, Joe had one daughter. 

They remained partners until their deaths on May 29, 2021, caused by a plane disaster.

They co-owned the Life With Gwen and Joe YouTube channel, where they provided their fans and followers with an inside look into their relationship.

Major Controversies Gwen Shamblin Was Involved in

During the investigation of the death of an 8-year-old kid called Josef Smith, Lara got involved in significant controversy. 

His parents reportedly claimed they beat their son because the Revenant Fellowship Church, which Lara established, approved of violence.

In another event, she also asserted that the doctrine of the Trinity was unbiblical.

She believed that Jesus Christ was God’s son, not the true God. Thomas Nelson Publishers decided not to publish her book Exodus as a result of her comments.

Gwen Shamblin’s Plane Crash Death

Gwen Shamblin’s death was caused by a plane crash accident.

On May 29, 2021, a private aircraft, The Cessna 501, bound for Palm Beach, Florida and carrying Gwen Shamblin Lara, Joe Lara, Brandon Hannah, and four other church officials, crashed into Percy Priest Lake close to Smyrna, Tennessee. 

The crash site contained human remains, and it was assumed that all seven passengers had died.

After their private plane crashed into a lake not far from Nashville, she, her husband, Joe Lara, and five other people perished. 

Jennifer J. Martin, David L. Martin, Jessica Walters, Jonathan Walters, and Brandon Hannah are others.

It crashed into Percy Priest Lake in Smyrna, Tennessee, then. East of Nashville, it was around 12 miles away. 

No one was able to survive the crash.

After only 90 seconds in the air, the plane began to descend, according to data from air traffic control.

According to reports, the small aircraft carrying the seven passengers was headed toward Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport.

According to the preliminary National Transportation Safety Board assessment, the plane crash occurred in instrument meteorological circumstances. 

The weather was gloomy, with a visibility of 10 miles (16 km), and the lowest ceilings were at 1,300 feet (400 m) above sea level. 

Air traffic control advised the pilot to climb shortly after the pilot acknowledged instructions to maintain an altitude of 3,000 feet (910 meters) above mean sea level and make a maneuver. 

However, the pilot stopped responding.

According to radar readings, the jet performed several heading changes and climbs and descents before making a sharp, descending left turn and crashing into a shallow part of Percy Priest Lake that was between 2 and 8 feet (0.6 and 2.4 meters) deep.

Gwen passed away on May 29, 2021, at the age of 66.

What Do We Learn From The Gwen Shamblin Plane Crash Documentary

The HBO Max documentary, the Way Down God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin opened with news coverage of the show’s central character Shamblin’s death in a plane crash.

The documentary focused on the cult-like Remnant Fellowship Church for the following three hours, barely mentioning the plane disaster until the end. 

This closed-off religious sect encourages weight loss by placing its trust in God.

On September 30, 2021, the first three episodes aired, quickly rising to the top spot among all the documentaries available on HBO Max.

The Shamblin’s Remnant church, which was accused of being a cult that encouraged child abuse, was the subject of an investigation, viewers of The Way Down learned in part one of the documentaries.

Reacting to allegations made in the documentary series from a year ago, Remnant said in a statement that it categorically denies the absurd defamatory statements and accusations made in this documentary and that its children are happy and healthy, being raised with the most love, care, support, and protection imaginable.

Shamblin’s Christian weight reduction program encouraged participants to pray to God to lose weight.

Despite her earlier public assertions, the video revealed that Shamblin’s will did not include any financial support for the Remnant Fellowship Church.

She donated “Weigh Down Ministries and its revenues, as well as all of her intellectual properties to the church,” according to a later statement from the church.

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