Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart dies at 90

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who became a household name amassing an enormous following and multimillion-dollar ministry, has died.

Swaggart's death was announced Tuesday on his public Facebook page. A cause wasn’t immediately given, though at 90 he had been in poor health, having suffered cardiac arrest last month.

The Louisiana native was best known for being a captivating Pentecostal preacher with a massive following before being caught with a prostitute in New Orleans in 1988. 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 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 Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley.

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.

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.

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 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.