Former Rep. George Santos announced Monday that he will reprise his drag queen persona in special videos to be sold on Cameo.
Santos became a first term Republican He was expelled from Congress in december X said he said he would create a Cameo account for his drag alter ego Kitara Rivache for a limited time.
“Weren’t you all ready for this descent?” Santos, 35, said. “After 18 years I decided to bring Kitara out of the closet!”
The personalized videos he creates on Cameo — a digital platform that lets fans pay celebrities to make short, personalized videos — will cost $350 each. account page. Santos began using Cameo days after he was expelled from Congress; in December he Semaphore said said that the money he earned on the platform in just 48 hours exceeded the $170,000 he would have earned serving in Congress for an entire year.
The disgraced former congressman from New York said 20% of the proceeds from his Kitara videos will go to two nonprofits: International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which aims to build support for Israel by strengthening ties between Jews and Christians; and the Towers Tunnel Foundation, which supports first responders, military personnel, veterans and helps “so that America never forgets September 11, 2001,” according to its website.
Tunnel to Towers told NBC News in an email that it had not contacted Santos or his team and only learned of the potential donations when Santos tweeted on Monday.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Santos’ announcement.
In 2022, Santos was charged with falsely claiming that he was Jewish and that his mother was at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Santos said In a New York Post interview later that year, he never claimed to be Jewish, but instead said he was a “Jew.” And notes Retrieved by NBC News In January 2023, it was revealed that Santos’ mother was living in Brazil at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
So was Santos accused In 2016, he refused to hand over thousands of dollars he raised for a disabled veteran whose dog needed life-saving surgery. Santos denied the allegations. Interview with Semaphore In 2023.
In January 2023, Brazilian drag queen Eula Rochard shared a photo on social media of herself and a drag performer she referred to by her stage name Kitara Rivache, saying the performer was actually Santos. NBC News did not independently verify Rochard’s photo This was reported by NBC News at the time, it first appeared in a Brazilian newspaper in 2008.
Santos, who lived part of his life in Brazil at that time, refused to perform in drag and called her claims of being a former drag queen “absolutely false.” In the following days he meant that he performed in drag in the past and told reporters: “I was young and had fun at the festival. Sue me for my life.”
Dragging photos purported to show Santos surfaced shortly after the bombing New York Times investigation It questioned whether Santos had fabricated key aspects of his education, work history, finances and personal life, including his time at Goldman Sachs and the 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where four employees were killed.
Shortly before he was expelled from Congress, Santos was slapped 23 federal charges in October. Santos pleaded not guilty to all charges, including money laundering, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and theft of public funds.
Santos’ attorney, Andrew Mancilla, said in an email Monday that his client pleaded not guilty and “the defense team will file motions to dismiss these charges later this week.”
Mancilla did not respond to a request for comment on Santos’ resurgent drag persona.
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