US Christian televangelist Jimmy Swaggart dead at 90

WASHINGTON - US televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who developed a worldwide following for his fiery Christian sermons before being felled in a prostitution scandal, died on Tuesday at the age of 90.

Swaggart's death from a heart attack at a hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was announced on the official Facebook page of his Jimmy Swaggart Ministries.

"Brother Swaggart has finished his earthly race and entered into the presence of His Savior, Jesus Christ," it said.

"For over seven decades, Brother Swaggart poured out his life preaching the gospel, singing songs of the faith, and pointing millions to the saving power of Jesus Christ," it added.

Swaggart, whose first cousins were rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley, rose to prominence in the 1980s at the head of his Louisiana-based Pentecostal church the Assemblies of God.

His televised sermons featuring fire and brimstone rhetoric and gospel music were watched by millions around the world and raised hundreds of millions of dollars in donations annually.

At his height, Swaggart joined the ranks of other leading Christian televangelists such as Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Jim Bakker, who was also disgraced in a sex scandal.

Swaggart's downfall came in 1987 after he was photographed at a motel in New Orleans with a prostitute.

He made a tearful televised confession the next year.

"I have sinned against you, my Lord," Swaggart said, without providing details. "I beg you forgive me."

Swaggart was defrocked by the elders of his church, and while he continued to preach over the next decades his following and his influence had diminished.