Brian Houston says account was 'hacked' after tweet about 'ladies and girls kissing'
Former Hillsong Church leader Brian Houston claims his X account was hacked after the account tweeted the words “ladies and girls kissing,” drawing scrutiny from social media users.
On Wednesday morning, Houston reposted a statement tweeted by a woman claiming to be one of his assistants urging users to disregard any recent posts that “seem out of the normal.”
“Rest assured we are working on discovering how Ps. Brian was hacked,” the statement reads. “Our team has ascertained that someone logged into his account from a location within the USA. We’ve changed his password so here’s hoping they no longer have access. Please disregard anything that seems out of the normal. For your safety remember Pastor Brian does not contact anyone privately.”
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@BrianCHoustonpic.twitter.com/qVFUu6KZME
— Yolanda (@yolandamariee23) February 21, 2024
The statement came a couple of hours after Houston’s account tweeted the words “ladies and girls kissing” on Tuesday night. The post generated reactions among social media users who were voicing their opinions on the post, with some guessing that it could have been a query for an internet search.
According to Relevant magazine, the tweet was posted on Tuesday at 11:41 p.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Time and remained on the site for 16 minutes before its removal. Houston reportedly tweeted, “I think my Twitter may have been hacked.”
Houston, who founded the global Evangelical megachurch network Hillsong in 1983, resigned as global senior pastor in March 2022 after it was publicly revealed that two women had made complaints of misconduct against him in the previous decade.
Hillsong stated that Houston violated its pastoral code of conduct by entering the hotel room of an unidentified woman for 40 minutes while under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs at Hillsong’s conference in 2019. Houston was also accused of sending a staffer an “inappropriate text message” in 2013. The staffer resigned shortly after.
In August, Houston was found not guilty of failing to report his father Frank Houston’s abuse of a boy in the 1970s to the police after being informed about it in 1999 when he served as the head of the Assemblies of God’s Australia branch.
Last April, Houston pleaded guilty to a DUI charge in California and was sentenced to three years' probation, a $140 fine and other penalties.
Houston announced plans to launch a new online ministry and church in December.
