Jimmy Kimmel responds to George Santos suing him over Cameo videos
On his Tuesday night show, Mr Kimmel described the lawsuit as ‘preposterous’
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Your support makes all the difference.Jimmy Kimmel has spoken out after George Santos filed a lawsuit accusing him of “deceiving” the scandal-plagued former lawmaker when he paid him to make Cameo videos.
On his late-night show on Tuesday night, the host poked fun at Mr Santos’ lawsuit which claims he believed video requests about a dog named Adolf and a man eating six pounds of loose ground beef were “real messages and that he was duped”.
“He’s being represented by the prestigious law firm of Pot, Kettle, and Black,” Mr Kimmel quipped of the man who was ousted from Congress in shame after a series of lies and alleged fraud came to light.
The former New York lawmaker sued Mr Kimmel — as well as ABC and Disney — for copyright infringement, fraudulent inducement, breach of contract and unjust enrichment in federal court on Saturday.
It came after Mr Kimmel revealed he had sent Mr Santos 14 “ridiculous” requests on Cameo, the site where celebrities offer short greetings for a fee, to see if the former congressman would fall for them.
It turned out that Mr Santos did just that.
The disgraced former congressman indeed accepted Mr Kimmel’s requests for several Cameo videos, which the late-night host then broadcast on Jimmy Kimmel Live in December in a mocking segment titled: “Will Santos Say It?”
But now Mr Santos has alleged Mr Kimmel “falsely represented himself” in the requests in order to induce him to create personalised videos “capitalizing on and ridiculing” his “gregarious personality,” the lawsuit alleges.
Mr Santos also accused Mr Kimmel of “exploiting the Cameo Videos on national television”.
Cameo offers two types of licenses — personal and business – and the suit claims that “neither of these licenses permits the Users to broadcast the videos on national television”. The videos made for Mr Kimmel were allegedly subject to the personal use license restriction.
On his Tuesday night show, Mr Kimmel responded to Mr Santos’ lawsuit, describing it as “preposterous”.
“We had a three-day weekend,” Mr Kimmel said, opening the show. “It was an eventful weekend for me. Did anyone else get sued by George Santos this weekend? I am currently embroiled in what may be the most preposterous lawsuit of all time.
“George Santos, a man Republicans kicked out of Congress for being a fraud, is suing me for fraud.”
Mr Kimmel appeared to make light of the situation on Tuesday night, explaining that Mr Santos filed the lawsuit “because we did a nice thing, because we supported him by ordering his Cameo videos”.
“After he was removed from the House, George signed on with Cameo to make some money,” Mr Kimmel said.
“You know the website where you can get a celebrity to make a video. So we wrote some absolutely ridiculous messages for him to read. We gave them a credit card number and sure enough he recorded the messages and sent them back to us. And now he’s suing. He says we deceived him under the guise of fandom soliciting personalised videos only to then broadcast these on national television.
“And if there’s one thing George Santos will not stand for it’s using a fake name under false pretenses,” Mr Kimmel joked.
The late-night host also cast doubt on the former congressman’s claims that he had been deceived by his requests.
“And by the way, the idea that he believed these messages, which get posted on the Cameo site anyway, were from real fans? One of them was about a guy named Gary who ate six pounds of loose ground beef in under 30 minutes. Another was a message congratulating my mom Brenda on the successful cloning of her beloved schnauzer Adolf,” Mr Kimmel said.
Mr Kimmel ended the segment by calling Mr Santos’ lawsuit “so good”, adding: “This is like getting sued for paternity by Nick Cannon.”
Mr Santos launched his Cameo account in December after he was expelled from Congress for allegedly deceiving his donors, knowingly filing false campaign finance statements, and using his campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, including rent, trips, luxury items, Botox and a subscription to the adult content site OnlyFans.
Since then, he has bragged about making a fortune from his Cameo videos, previously revealing that he had surpassed his congressional salary of $174,000 in his first 48 hours on the platform after charging up to $400 per video.
Now, he is seeking at least $750,000 in damages from Mr Kimmel, ABC and Disney.
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