Introduction
Introduction Statistics Contact Development Disclaimer Help
.-') _ .-') _
( OO ) ) ( OO ) )
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,'
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | )
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--'
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, whose ministry was toppled by
prostitution scandals, dies at 90
By Associated Press
Updated:
1:51 PM EDT, Tue July 1, 2025
Source: AP
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who became a household name amassing an
enormous following and multimillion-dollar ministry only to be undone
by his penchant for prostitutes, has died.
Swaggart died decades after his once vast audience dwindled and his
name became a punchline on late night television. His death was
announced Tuesday on his public Facebook page. A cause wasn’t
immediately given, though at 90 he had been in poor health.
The Louisiana native was best known for being a captivating Pentecostal
preacher with a massive following before being caught on camera with a
prostitute in New Orleans in 1988, one of a string of successful TV
preachers brought down in the 1980s and ’90s by sex scandals. He
continued preaching for decades, but with a reduced audience.
Swaggart encapsulated his downfall in a tearful 1988 sermon, in which
he wept and apologized but made no reference to his connection to a
prostitute.
“I have sinned against you,” Swaggart told parishioners nationwide.
“I beg you to forgive me.”
He announced his resignation from the Assemblies of God later that
year, shortly after the church said it was defrocking him for rejecting
punishment it had ordered for “moral failure.” The church had
wanted him to undergo a two-year rehabilitation program, including not
preaching for a full year.
Swaggart said at the time that he knew dismissal was inevitable but
insisted he had no choice but to separate from the church to save his
ministry and Bible college.
From poverty and oil fields to a household name
Swaggart grew up poor, the son of a preacher, in a music-rich family.
He excelled at piano and gospel music, playing and singing with
talented cousins who took different paths: rock-‘n’-roller and
country singer .
In his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, Swaggart said he first heard
the call of God at age 8. The voice gave him goose bumps and made his
hair tingle, he said.
“Everything seemed different after that day in front of the Arcade
Theater,” he said in a 1985 interview with the Jacksonville
Journal-Courier in Illinois. “I felt better inside. Almost like
taking a bath.”
He preached and worked part time in oil fields until he was 23. He then
moved entirely into his ministry: preaching, playing piano and singing
gospel songs with the barrelhouse fervor of cousin Lewis at Assemblies
of God revivals and camp meetings.
Swaggart started a radio show, a magazine, and then moved into
television, with outspoken views.
He called Roman Catholicism “a false religion. It is not the
Christian way,” and claimed that Jews suffered for thousands of years
“because of their rejection of Christ.”
“If you don’t like what I say, talk to my boss,” he once shouted
as he strode in front of his congregation at his Family Worship Center
in Baton Rouge, where his sermons moved listeners to speak in tongues
and stand up as if possessed by the Holy Spirit.
Swaggart’s messages stirred thousands of congregants and millions of
TV viewers, making him a household name by the late 1980s. Contributors
built Jimmy Swaggart Ministries into a business that made an estimated
$142 million in 1986.
His Baton Rouge complex still includes a worship center and
broadcasting and recording facilities.
The scandals that led to Swaggart’s ruin
Swaggart’s downfall came in the late 1980s as other prominent
preachers faced similar scandals. Swaggart said publicly that his
earnings were hurt in 1987 by the sex scandal surrounding and a former
church secretary at Bakker’s PTL ministry organization.
The following year, Swaggart was photographed at a hotel with Debra
Murphree, an admitted prostitute who told reporters that the two did
not have sex but that the preacher had paid her to pose nude.
She later repeated the claim — and posed nude — for Penthouse
magazine.
The surveillance photos that crippled Swaggart’s career apparently
stemmed from his rivalry with preacher Marvin Gorman, whom Swaggart had
accused of sexual misdeeds. Gorman hired the photographer who captured
Swaggart and Murphree on film. Swaggart later paid Gorman $1.8 million
to settle a lawsuit over the sexual allegations against Gorman.
More trouble came in 1991, when police in California detained Swaggart
with another prostitute. The evangelist was charged with driving on the
wrong side of the road and driving an unregistered Jaguar. His
companion, Rosemary Garcia, said Swaggart became nervous when he saw
the police car and weaved when he tried to stuff pornographic magazines
under a car seat.
Swaggart was later mocked by the late TV comic Phil Hartman, who
impersonated him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
Out of the public eye but still in the pulpit
The evangelist largely stayed out of the news in later years but
remained in the pulpit at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, often joined by
his son, Donnie, a fellow preacher. His radio station broadcast church
services and gospel music to 21 states, and Swaggart’s ministry
boasted a worldwide audience on the internet.
“There’s been no greater example of a good and faithful servant
than my father. No ifs, ands and buts about it. A man who lived his
life for the cause of Christ,” Donnie Swaggart said in a on social
media Sunday about his dad’s final days.
The preacher caused another brief stir in 2004 with remarks about being
“looked at” amorously by a gay man.
“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,” Jimmy Swaggart
said, to laughter from the congregation. He later apologized.
Swaggart made few public appearances outside his church, save for
singing “Amazing Grace” at the 2005 funeral of Louisiana Secretary
of State Fox McKeithen, a prominent name in state politics for decades.
In 2022, he shared memories at the for Lewis, his cousin and rock
‘n’ roll pioneer. The pair had released “The Boys From
Ferriday,” a gospel album, earlier that year.
This story was updated with additional information.
<- back to index
You are viewing proxied material from codevoid.de. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.