Jimmy Swaggart, one of the country’s best-known televangelists who apologized after he was caught in a sex scandal, has died, his ministry’s SonLife Broadcasting Network announced in a statement shared with CBS News. He was 90.
Swaggart died Tuesday morning, the statement said. News of his death was also posted to his official Facebook page.
“Today, our hearts are heavy as we share that Brother Swaggart has finished his earthly race and entered into the presence of His Savior, Jesus Christ,” the Facebook post said. “Today was the day he has sung about for decades. He met his beloved Savior and entered the portals of glory. At the same time, we rejoice knowing that we will see him again one day.”
Last month, Swaggart was hospitalized after going into cardiac arrest at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to his son, Donnie Swaggart.
The founder of his eponymous ministry, Jimmy Swaggart began preaching on the radio in the early 1960s. He founded the Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, where his family continues to preach, and his ministry also runs the SonLife Broadcasting Network, which broadcasts the Family Worship Center’s services.
Jimmy Swaggart developed a large following with his televised sermons in the 1980s. He made national headlines in 1988 when he was photographed outside a New Orleans-area hotel with a sex worker. He tearfully admitted to sinning, delivering an apology to his congregation during a live television broadcast, although he did not specify that he had solicited a prostitute.
“I have sinned against you,” Swaggart said in an emotional speech to his followers. “I beg you to forgive me.”
The incident led to him being defrocked by the Assemblies of God, although he continued to preach.
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Three years later, he was again found with a prostitute, this time during a traffic stop in Indio, California. He told his congregation that God said to him, “You tell them that Thursday morning you’ll be making television programs,” adding: “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business.”
The controversies surrounding Swaggart weren’t limited to those encounters. He said that Roman Catholicism was “not the Christian way” and a “false religion,” and he also said the reason why Jewish people suffered for millennia was “because of their rejection of Christ.”
“If you don’t like what I say, talk to my boss,” he once said to congregants at the Family Worship Center.
In 2004, Swaggart said he would turn to violence if a gay man looked at him romantically.
“And I’m going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died,” Swaggart told laughing congregants. He apologized later for the remark.
Jimmy Swaggart has also recorded gospel music and is the cousin of the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis. Swaggart spoke at Lewis’ funeral in 2022, and one of Lewis’ final records was a gospel album he recorded with Swaggart that was released just a few months before Lewis’ death.
contributed to this report.
