Over the past month or so, many of us have spent hours gazing upon the face of George Santos. The serial fabulist and new Republican congressman from Long Island has attracted a massive amount of media attention due to the sheer volume and audacity of his various scams, so his pouty mug has been all over news sites, television, and social media feeds.
As we’ve pored over these endless photos of Santos around the Capitol, often looking contemplative and lonely but occasionally trying to wedge his way into the cool insurrection-curious crowd in Congress, a few of us have wondered one thing: What the hell is this guy doing to his skin?
It’s smooth, it’s plump, it’s radiant—it’s remarkably wrinkle-free for a man who is, he claims, 34 years old. But now, thanks to a surreptitiously taped audio clip published by Talking Points Memo on Thursday, we now know what I had quite confidently suspected: It’s Botox.
In the conversation, which was taped and leaked by Derek Myers—a guy who volunteered for Santos’s congressional office in January—Myers says he himself pays $100 for Botox injections in Bogota, rather than pay $400 for the treatment in the U.S.
“I spend a lot more than that on Botox,” Santos replies, “but I trust the people.”
Was Myers baiting Santos into admitting he gets Botox? Maybe! Myers is a local news reporter from Ohio who became semi-famous for facing wiretapping charges after he published some secretly recorded audio from a murder trial. So it’s fair to assume, as Santos clearly should have, that this guy has an actively running tape recorder on his person at all times.
At any rate, Santos could be lying about his skin-care regimen, just as he’s fabricated nearly every other line in his biography. But what reason would he have to pretend he spends a lot of money injecting neurotoxins into his face? Why would he concoct a fake story to make himself seem more vain and less naturally beautiful than he really is?
When people lie about Botox, it’s usually the reverse situation: They’ve had it, but they say they haven’t. I’m inclined to think that if something walks like a duck (has no wrinkles) and quacks like a duck (is suspiciously “glow-y”), and goes on to identify itself to Derek Myers as a duck, it’s probably a duck (Botox).
The one suspicious part of Santos’s claim is the $400+ Botox pricing. We know he loves to make purchases that total exactly $199.99, which just so happens to be one cent under the threshold for campaign expenses that must be documented with itemized receipts. If he were a bit savvier, he might have figured out a way to make his treatments add up to his favorite sum, and maybe get them covered by campaign donations, too.
Either way, the ascent of the gay millennial Botox Republican who bonds with staffers over their respective injectables routines feels like the dawn of a new era of shamelessness in Congress. After all, it’s no bother to be hounded by reporters about your fraudulent finances when the face they’re capturing on camera is pristine.
