This isn’t any laughing matter.
Expelled ex-Rep. George Santos is suing television host Jimmy Kimmel for allegedly misusing his Cameo clips on his show, The Post has learned.
Santos claims Kimmel duped him into producing over a dozen personalized videos through the video platform, which he then featured on his late-night talk show, in response to a criticism filed Saturday in Manhattan federal court.
In December, just a little over a yr after his election victory, Santos was booted from the House of Representatives following fraud and other charges and a damning report from the House Ethics Committee alleging he spent campaign funds on OnlyFans, Botox, and Hermes.
Santos quickly began shilling his image on the app Cameo, where celebrities can sell personalized videos, and unknowingly made a minimum of 14 clips for pseudonymous requests from Kimmel for $500 a pop, in response to the criticism.
Amongst Kimmel’s scripts for Santos were videos congratulating a girl for successfully cloning her schnauzer named Adolf, in addition to a person for winning a competitive ground beef eating contest, court papers noted.
Along with allegedly violating Cameo’s terms of service and Santos’ copyright, the suit claims Kimmel committed fraud by using fake aliases to solicit videos “for the only purpose of capitalizing on and ridiculing [Santos’] gregarious personality” — and even bragged on his show about his duplicity.
Kimmel “played on the comedic irony of possibly getting sued by [Santos] for fraud, claiming [on his show] that it could be a ‘dream come true,’” the suit notes.
The federal suit is the most recent salvo within the feud between Kimmel and the lying ex-legislator, who infamously fabricated his background during his congressional run.
After several of the videos were played on the show in a segment titled “Will Santos Say It?” the previous legislator’s attorney Andrew Mancilla sent a stop and desist letter to Kimmel and threatened to sue over the clips’ use.
Santos is searching for a minimum of $750,000 in damages. ABC and Disney are also named within the criticism.
“Jimmy, sorry that my Christmas gift to you got here late, but here’s to creating wishes come true,” Santos told The Post. “I hope you enjoy reading your lawsuit for fraud that you just’ve been looking forward to.”
Kimmel, ABC, and Disney didn’t reply to requests for comment.