Matt Gaetz joins Cameo like disgraced congressman before him

Matt Gaetz is pulling a George Santos.

The Florida Republican has gone from a sitting member of Congress to selling custom videos on Cameo in about the span of a week.

On Friday, as first noticed by Semafor political reporter Kadia Goba, Matt Gaetz opened up an official account on Cameo, a website that allows celebrities to sell custom message videos to fans.

When Gaetz opened the account, he priced his videos at $250 before quickly updating the price to $500. As of publishing, Gaetz is now selling Cameo videos for $525.

Matt Gaetz’s Cameo page
Credit: Mashable screenshot via Cameo

Gaetz has already sold and completed at least two videos, both are viewable on his Cameo profile page.

“I served in Congress. Trump nominated me to be US Attorney General (that didn’t work out). Once I fired the House Speaker,” reads Gaetz’s profile on Cameo.

The disgraced Congressman to Cameo pipeline

As his profile hints, Gaetz resigned from Congress on Nov. 13, shortly after President-elect Donald Trump announced that he was nominating the Florida Republican to be attorney general.

Gaetz was a controversial pick from the start. The former Congressman was disliked even by members of his own party. As he mentions in his profile, Gaetz played a critical role in ousting former Congressman Kevin McCarthy from his House Speaker role in 2023.

Gaetz also faced another big hurdle: A House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old. Gaetz withdrew from AG consideration around the time CNN published a report about a second sexual misconduct allegation. According to reports, Trump had called Gaetz to let him know that he did not have the votes in Congress to be confirmed as AG as well.

The move to Cameo from Gaetz is reminiscent of another disgraced former Congressman’s post-politics plan. Republican George Santos was kicked out of Congress late last year following an array of federal charges, including wire fraud and identity theft.

Shortly after leaving Congress, Santos started a Cameo account where he began selling custom videos for $150. Santos also quickly raised his prices too.

Gaetz move isn’t that much of a surprise as Santos’ Cameo career has proved to be quite lucrative. In February 2024, it was reported that Santos had sold 1,200 videos on Cameo and had made $400,000 in just a couple of months. That beats what Gaetz and Santos were making as Congressmen, which comes with a salary of $174,000.