Jimmy Kimmel is escalating his beef with former Republican New York Rep. George Santos.
“I am currently embroiled in what may be the most preposterous lawsuit of all time,” Kimmel said on Tuesday night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “George Santos, a man Republicans kicked out of Congress for being a fraud, is suing me for fraud.”
Santos, who was expelled from Congress last year for lying about his resume and using campaign funds for personal expenses, filed a lawsuit Saturday against Kimmel and ABC alleging that Kimmel used “deceitful tactics” after Kimmel paid Santos to record video messages and then played them on Kimmel’s show.
In December, Kimmel had a segment on his show called “Will Santos Say It,” where Kimmel used fake names to buy videos from Santos on the celebrity video platform Cameo. Kimmel had Santos read out absurd messages, like owishing a friend well after winning a beef eating contest.
Santos is suing Kimmel for copyright infringement, fraud, breach of contract and unjust enrichment and is seeking $750,000 in damages.
“Comedy is wonderful, until you violate someone’s rights, then you get sued,” Robert Fantone, an attorney at the law firm representing Santos, said in a statement to HuffPost on Saturday.
On Saturday, Santos wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was upholding his “legal rights” with the lawsuit against Kimmel.
“If you don’t stand up for yourself you will always lose,” Santos wrote. “That’s what I’m doing with this lawsuit. I’m standing my ground and fighting to uphold my legal rights. Jimmy boy thought he could use fraudulent means to violate my copyrights and now he’s going to face the consequences. It’s really that simple. My legal case is unassailable, there’s no question I am in the right.”
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