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 yesterday 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 apologised but made no reference to his connection to a prostitute, reports The Associated Press.

“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.”