Megachurch founder who prayed over Trump scrambles to explain explicit video on X account

The founder of the Hillsong megachurch, Brian Houston, was attempting to respond to why pornography was posted on his X account, according to reports on Thursday.

Houston — who once prayed over President Donald Trump in 2019 — shared an explicit video called "The Classic Pornostar Era 80/90/2000" around 2 a.m. Pacific time on May 12, The Daily Beast reported. The New Zealand native who has been living in California rushed to respond to the embarrassing moment.

"The video remained online for several minutes before it was deleted. Houston, whose church once counted Justin Bieber and Chris Pratt among its high-profile supporters, later posted that his account had been 'compromised overnight' without further explanation," according to The Beast.

The next day, he released a video on Facebook discussing what he claimed happened.

"A good starting point is to say I do not watch pornography, not online, not on social media, nowhere else," Houston said.

"I’ve been in active ministry for over 54 years, and in that time I’ve seen the fallout of pornography on individuals, on marriages, on families, and I detest it," he added.

Houston resigned from the Hillsong megachurch in 2022 after allegations of sexual misconduct from two women, according to The Beast.

He was accused of failing to alert authorities after he discovered his father, Frank Houston, who was a preacher, had sexually abused a child in the 1970s. In 2023, he was found not guilty of concealing his father's abuse. He told the Australian court during the trial that it's unclear the full extent of his father's crimes, who he called a "serial paedophile."