Jimmy Swaggart, who was one of the most influential televangelists in the United States in the 1980s before an adventure with a prostitute knocked down his career, died at the age of 90.
Swaggart grew in a musically talented family and related to Rockabilly Jerry Lee Lewis pioneer and Country Mickey Gilley star.
While his cousins achieved a significant fame in secular music, Swaggart pursued Gospel and Televangelismo music.
Ironically, his two talented cousins died in 2022. Mickey Gilley died at the age of 86 in May 2022, while Jerry Lee Lewis died at the age of 87 in October 2022.
At its peak as a fundamentalist Pentecostal preacher, Swaggart had an estimated global audience of 200 million. Then came the prostitute scandal in 1988.
With tears sprouting down his cheeks, Swaggart admitted to his congregation that he had sinned, without providing details, and begged forgiveness.
A tall and muscular man with chiseled features, Swaggart was an imposing figure when he began his own career preaching in the corners of the streets and in the rural meetings of Pentecostal, full of singing, waving by hand and speaking in tongues.
By 1969 he had the success of “the meeting of the camp hour”, a radio broadcast, and his star went up more when he took his sermons to television in 1973.
After the news of his death was announced, thousands of people turned to social networks asking for the details of the funeral of Jimmy Swaggart.
According to its website, no service was scheduled for Tuesday.
