After his lies and expulsion from Congress, and before his sentencing in February, George Santos chases the limelight with a party and a podcast.
“Be nice to me, please,” George Santos was pleading to a group of half-drunk, half-bored reporters. “I wore my sparkly shoes!”
He and his bedazzled Ferragamo sneakers were standing beside a baby grand piano in the center of a tiny barroom on West 56th Street in Midtown Manhattan on Monday night. A mix of tabloid writers, influencers and low-level Republican operatives had turned up there for a party he was throwing. It was ostensibly to toast the launch of his podcast, which carried the too-cute-by-half title of “Pants on Fire With George Santos.”
You remember George Santos, right?
It was at about this time last year when his short-lived career as a congressman from New York — a young, gay, Latino and Republican one at that — exploded spectacularly after he was exposed as a liar of epic, almost literary proportions. He lied about things big and small, stupid and serious. There were lies about money and employment and college degrees and dressing in drag. Lies about Jewish ancestry, Sept. 11, a gay nightclub shooting, a Broadway production of “Spider-Man” and a pet charity. He lied about volleyball.
It was a truly great story, a farce about truth and shamelessness and the limits of partisan baboonery in American life and politics in (what was believed to be then) the post-Trump era. Newspaper editors assigned whole reporting teams to cover him and his deceptions. Big-shot magazine journalists and television anchors begged for interviews and access. The media frenzy reached such a pitch that Mr. Santos was compared, however ironically, to Princess Diana in many a viral meme (“Saturday Night Live” even made a joke about it). And then, at last, he was expelled from Congress. The fade to black happened fast, as it always does.
And so there he was, one year later, in a tiny canteen near Times Square, just trying to get a little ink like old times.
“I think the last time we saw an international media frenzy like that was Lady Di,” he said. “I’m not comparing myself to Princess Diana. I’m just saying the truth.” But, as Holly Golightly said, there are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion. “Well, if you know how to walk out of the limelight in a way that you can capitalize on it,” he said, gesturing at an advertisement for his podcast that had been erected inside the bar.
