Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is dead at the age of 90.
He was a man of many contradictions and continuity errors. He was a fiery televangelist who had a whole lot to say about other people’s sex lives and immorality, but who also famously enjoyed the occasional lady of the evening.
Swaggart surely served as a role model and inspiration to many future evangelical preachers, like Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tony Alamo, Douglas Goodman, and so, so many others others who would go on to follow in his very holy/pervy footsteps.
In 1988 — not long after he had publicly dragged his fellow televangelist Jim Bakker for having used church funds to pay $279,000 in hush money to his former secretary Jessica Hahn after he raped her, committing multiple acts of fraud for which he was later imprisoned, as well as for owning a waterpark — a rival evangelist of Swaggart’s sold photos of him going to a motel with a sex worker, after Swaggart refused to stop accusing him of being an adulterer. That picture you see above is from his very famous apology.
According to sex worker Debra Murphree, Swaggart (who was very, very concerned about the evils of pornography) was a regular client who at first just wanted her to “pose” for him nude and did not want to pay her more than $20 for anything. Despite being a virulent homophobe, Murphree said he had asked her if she could bring another girl so he could watch them have sex with each other.
Perhaps most disturbingly, and I had not heard this before, and when I say “disturbingly” I do mean TRIGGER WARNING: Murphree said he kept asking her about her 9-year-old daughter, asking if he could meet her. He (allegedly) told Murphree that he wanted to take pictures of her in front of her daughter so she could get “comfortable” and then take pictures of her and I do not think she was talking about doing any Sears Portrait Studio-style material.
The second time he was caught with a sex worker was in 1991, when he was pulled over by police and found to be in the company of one Rosemary Garcia, who flat out told the press, “He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute.”
This time, he did not apologize, but instead told his congregants that he spoke to God about it and “God told me it’s flat out none of your business.” Curiously, God had previously told him to write a book telling God-fearing Christians that they should not go to movie theaters, go out dancing, or do aerobics, because of how those activities could bring out sexual and lustful feelings.
Naturally, Swaggart also hated gay people and once announced from the pulpit that he would murder any gay man who looked at him like he wanted to marry him. He was subsequently surprised that anyone would find such a statement offensive rather than hilarious.
Via NBC:
In the broadcast, Swaggart was discussing his opposition to gay marriage when he said “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry.”
“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 said to laughter and applause from the congregation.
On Wednesday, Swaggart said he has jokingly used the expression “killing someone and telling God he died” thousands of times, about all sorts of people. He said the expression is figurative and not meant to harm.“It’s a humorous statement that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t lie to God — it’s ridiculous,” Swaggart told The Associated Press. “If it’s an insult, I certainly didn’t think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology.”
I mean, it’s not like murder is a super big sin or anything. Not like aerobics.
He was very close with his cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, who famously married his other cousin when she was 13 years old, while he was married to another woman, and then subjected her to “every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable.” They liked to sing about Jesus together.
Swaggart was also known to have said some truly, truly disturbing things about Jewish people — for instance, that they brought the Holocaust upon themselves because they "rejected Jesus,” and yet he was a very big fan of Israel, having once claimed that God may have spared Canada from the mortgage crisis because of their relationship with the nation.
So yes. Jimmy Swaggart is dead. He lived a long and deeply hypocritical life and was a terrible person who may or may not have attempted to molest a 9-year-old girl. Good riddance.
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