One day after withdrawing his name as a candidate for US Attorney General, former Congressman Matt Gaetz has launched a new challenge by creating personalized videos for a fee on the website Cameo.
Gaetz joined the platform on Friday, the same day he announced he would not be sworn in to Congress despite his re-election in January. His fee was initially set at $250 per video, according to Semafor, which first reported the news. Saturday afternoon he was asking $525 per video.
A spokesperson for Cameo told the Pensacola News Journal that Gaetz joined the website on Friday. Gaetz also promotes his Cameo account in his bio on X.
Gaetz’s new appearance follows a tumultuous few days in his political career. Last week, after President-elect Donald Trump announced Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, the Florida Republican immediately resigned from Congress, prompting a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use against him disturbed. (The Justice Department ended a sex trafficking investigation against Gaetz last year without filing any charges.) Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.
The publication of the commission’s report subsequently became the subject of intense debate among lawmakers. Gaetz’s allies pressured the committee not to make its findings public, although several Republican senators said they were interested in seeing the report ahead of his confirmation hearing. Now that Gaetz is no longer running for AG, it could ease pressure on the panel to release its report.
Gaetz follows another high-profile Republican congressman who went to Cameo to capitalize on his fame. Late last year, former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., began making personalized videos on the platform when he was expelled from the House of Representatives after an ethics investigation found he had misused campaign funds for personal expenses. Santos has since pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.
While it’s too early to gauge Gaetz’s success on the platform, Santos proved extremely popular. Cameo CEO Steven Galanis told Yahoo News that Santos exceeded his annual congressional salary of $174,000 in the first week after joining the website.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
