George Santos is living his best life. The disgraced congress member from New York—who recently made history by becoming the first House member to be ejected by his colleagues without a criminal conviction—says he has found a new and better source of revenue: making personalized videos on Cameo for $500 apiece. “I will have made more money in seven days than I would’ve made in an entire year in Congress,” Santos told CBS New York recently.
Santos’s boasts have brought renewed attention to Cameo, the website and app where users can commission personalized videos from celebrities. Its roster of past and current stars includes professional athletes like football Hall of Famer Brett Favre, actors like Chuck Norris and Ice-T, reality TV stars from The Real Housewives and Survivor, social media influencers, comedians, and even Santa Claus. The site, which exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, had struggled to stay in the zeitgeist in recent years—but Santos may have given it the lifeline that it needed.
“George is up there with the best launches that we’ve ever had,” Steven Galanis, cofounder and CEO of Cameo, told Fortune. “His first day on Cameo was right up there with Bon Jovi or Sarah Jessica Parker.”
Santos, 35, was expelled from Capitol Hill on Dec. 1 after a federal indictment and an unfavorable report from the House Committee on Ethics that found “substantial evidence” he had knowingly and repeatedly broken the law. Never one to shy away from a hustle, Santos had a Cameo account by Dec. 4.
Since joining the platform, Santos has raised his rates from $75 to $500 per video, which usually clock in from 30 seconds to a minute long, and has told Semafor that his Cameo income already dwarfs his $174,000 congressional salary.
The former politician is perhaps even better known now than during his time on Capitol Hill. His Cameos have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram and have led to further publicity opportunities, like his recent hot-seat-style interview with comedian and writer Ziwe Fumudoh. Santos helped bring Cameo back into the limelight, and Cameo elevated Santos into a Gen Z icon.
