A video appearing to show disgraced former New York congressman George Santos being doused in ice cream in Times Square went viral over the weekend.
The clip, which had been viewed millions of times on X, shows the 36-year-old convicted felon being accosted by a man seemingly outraged that Santos has “the audacity to show his face.”
Watch video of the incident below.
After getting the ex-Long Island congressman’s attention, the man tosses a milkshake all over Santos' jacket and asks, “How do you like that?”
“You are un-[expletive] believable,” Santos tells the man before walking out of frame.
But, in true Santos fashion, it was all a lie. In a video posted on X Saturday, Dec. 14, he confessed the entire ordeal was a planned publicity stunt filmed months ago to help promote his new podcast.
Oh, and that angry, milkshake-tossing gentleman? His friend.
“Today a video has been circulating of what may look like an assault. I just want to clear it out, it was not,” Santos said.
He explained that the stunt was ultimately scrapped after he deemed it “insensitive” and “tone-deaf,” but his friend went ahead and posted the clip anyway.
“It’s funny, laugh at it, but I don’t want there to be a misconstruction that there is aggression of political nature, of divisive nature,” he said.
Santos, whose brief, whirlwind political career ended with his historic ouster from Congress and, this past summer, guilty pleas to federal wire fraud and identity theft charges, apologized for anyone who was “worked up” or “upset.”
“So I just wanted to say sorry. To everybody who’s gonna be mad at me, you deserve to be mad at me. I’ll take this one,” he said, placing his fingers in the shape of an “L” on his forehead.
Check out video of the incident below.
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