Ted Cruz accidentally gets caught up in a publicity stunt for an adult-themed NFT
Remember that time Ted Cruz accidentally liked an adult video tweet? The incident was somewhat glossed over when Cruz’s office blamed the incident on a rogue employee. But the internet remembers, and there’s a reason people can recycle all the gifs from that event now.
The Republican senator finds himself once again embroiled in adult entertainment. This time, NFTs are involved.
It all started at a Yankees game last week, where the jumbotron panned to Cruz in the crowd and he was met with a chorus of boos. The ballgame visit was recorded on his podcast — yes, Ted Cruz has his own podcast called “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” and I listen to it religiously — and the conversation revolved around a scantily clad woman behind him at the game.
Co-host Ben Ferguson, who was not at the Yankees-Astros game, explained that the woman was a hot topic in Cruz’s oversight during the game: “everybody’s tweeting me or texting me, ‘Who’s that sitting behind him?'”
As for Cruz himself, he explained. “My Jeff leans over next to me, he kind of leans over and tells me, ‘Okay, she’s behind you. “She’s selling an NFT.” So she had a sign and she’s selling it, and she has it — to use the Monty Python phrase: ‘She’s got big lands.'”
Then he recalled: “she was actually very nice – she and I took a selfie.”
Cruz, who once said his life’s goal was to star in a “teen tit movie,” talks about the sheer willpower it took not to stare at the woman’s bosom, which was emblazoned with the pink text “NFT,” in fear because the photo would be caught on camera and used to embarrass him.
The senator’s comments on the NFT model attracted a lot of attention this week. But who was the mysterious woman? And what was the NFT project she was promoting? Was it World of Women? Some kind of monkey thing? Was it art?
Some internet research determined that the woman’s shirt said either “NFT Hotel” or “NFT Hotel.” And sure enough, we discovered on Instagram an obscure NFT project called NFTmotel.io. The account was ecstatic about the attention their model, who goes by Pippin DDD, had received from her closeness to Cruz.
What, you might be wondering, is NFTmotel.io (besides a very bad idea for a motel)?
As it turns out, it’s a startup that promises to be an NFT-powered version of OnlyFans. “Using never-before-seen blockchain technology,” it boasts, “NFTmotel.io takes Web3 Adult Entertainment to the next level, allowing customers to experience their favorite stars and models up close like never before.”
Its “Pink Paper” mentions being able to use the MOTEL token to enter private online rooms and “Peep Shows”, and teases something called “Project XXX”, which will be “[b]more webcam shows, beyond a boyfriend’s ‘experience’, beyond your wildest imagination.”
“Check it out – it’s entrepreneurship!” says Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank in a pitch for NFTmotel featured on the project’s website.
Oddly enough, the site also highlights video recommendations from two Hai tank judges, Kevin “Mr. Fantastic” O’Leary and For Us By Us businessman Daymond John. In their shout-out to NFTmotel, neither man mentions the adult content part of the business. Both seem to believe they are endorsing an NFT experience which somehow supports “military families”.
So, in addition to being a grown-up NFT, Cruz appears to have entered into an unwitting flirtation with a crypto project of at least mildly fraudulent nature.
The irony here comes from the fact that Cruz himself is actually a fanatical crypto booster. The senator made headlines when he introduced legislation that would limit the federal government’s ability to regulate digital currency. “I want Texas to be the oasis on planet Earth for bitcoin and crypto,” he said earlier this year.
