A spokesman for the Chelsea and Westminster hospital in west London said Mr Profumo died shortly after midnight, local time, after being treated for two days.
Mr Profumo was war minister in the cabinet of Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, but left in disgrace after lying to the House of Commons over his affair with escort Christine Keeler.
Ms Keeler later revealed she had also been seeing a Russian intelligence officer and the Soviet assistant naval attaché Eugene Ivanov, plunging the cabinet into crisis at the height of the Cold War.
The scandal was one of the biggest in 20th century Britain and put an end to Mr Profumo's political career.
The former minister subsequently avoided the limelight and devoted himself to charity work in London's East End.
He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire medal) in 1975.
He was shunned for many years by his former colleagues, who blamed him for the Tories' decline in the 1960s.
Some of the events of the Profumo Affair are depicted in the 1989 film Scandal, starring John Hurt, Joanne Whalley and Bridget Fonda.