The founder and former leader of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, has said his X account was hacked after his account posted the words “ladies and girls kissing”.
According to Relevant Magazine, the post appeared on Tuesday 11:41pm AEDT and was deleted after 16 minutes.
It reportedly garnered speculation from social media users who wondered if he was searching for those words online, or if he was hacked.
On Friday at 4:02am GMT, Houston reposted a statement posted on X by one of his assistants which told people to ignore any posts from him that seem unusual.
The statement read: “Hello Everyone. Thank you for your concern, Ps Brian’s assistant here! Rest assured we are working on discovering how Ps Brian was hacked. Our team has ascertained that someone has logged into his account from a location in 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. Thank you!”
Houston, who resigned from Hillsong in 2021, has in his past been accused of inappropriate behaviour toward two women, which the Church apologised for in 2022.
In the first instance, Houston was accused of sending inappropriate text messages which led to the woman who received them resigning. The second incident saw Houston enter the hotel room of a woman during the Church's annual conference in 2019 but Hillsong's investigation was not able to confirm exactly what happened.
Meanwhile, last April, Houston was fined and sentenced to three years' probation for driving under the influence of alcohol while in the US.
In August 2023, Houston was acquitted of failing not to report historical abuse allegations against his father. An Australian court ruled that he had a "reasonable excuse" under the law not to disclose the information.
Last December, Houston announced he will be starting a new online ministry and church.
