”If they need a bit of money that day, they just make themselves available. It’s like being an Uber driver,“ Peter Csathy, chairman of CREATV Media, tells TheWrap
“Tiger King” antihero Carole Baskin is gaining further notoriety — and making hundreds of thousands of dollars — by sending short, personalized video shout-outs to paying fans through a mobile app called Cameo.
In less than a week on the platform, Baskin raked in over $100,000, Cameo Chief Operating Officer Arthur Leopold told TheWrap, noting that some celebrities can earn much more.

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“All those revenues are gone indefinitely, and could be for a long time, and artists are looking for new ways to make money out of necessity,” said Peter Csathy, founder and chairman of the communications firm CREATV Media. “One of the areas (in tech) where I see a real significant future opportunity, and Cameo is part of it, is the ability for artists to scale themselves and monetize it. The pandemic and our collective lockdown has only accelerated that trend.”
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Leopold said the talent sets the pricing and that Cameo takes a 25% cut of every booking, regardless of the price or how famous the person is.
The prices for Zoom calls with celebrities range from expensive to absurd. For $15,000, “Entourage” fans can book Jeremy Piven for a 10-minute conversation on Zoom, while comedian Gilbert Gottfried charges $500 per call. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay‘s price tag is $1,400. “The Office” actor Leslie David Baker asks for a cool $2,500 per booking, and Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre charges $2,000 per session. Rapper Snoop Dogg, an investor in the company (like Favre), has charged as much as $750 for messages to fans.
Some entertainers can make $20,000 in “15 to 20 minutes,” Leopold said.
As long as a fan has the cash, they can book a Zoom call with the celebrity and receive dial-in instructions. If customers don’t hear back from the star within one week, Cameo provides a full refund. “It’s really a brand positive for celebrities in that people are paying them to make them more famous,” Leopold said.
Csathy said that Cameo represents a gig economy for celebrities and entertainers, who have produced more than 1 million videos on the platform to date. “All these people are just sitting around the house, and if they need a bit of money that day, they just make themselves available,” Csathy said. “It’s like being an Uber driver.”
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Cameo wouldn’t disclose its finances, but Leopold projects that this year’s revenues will exceed $100 million. The company has raised roughly $65 million since its 2017 launch by founder and CEO Steven Galanis and chief technology officer Devon Townsend. Cameo is headquartered in Chicago, but operates offices in London and Venice, Calif.
The app is backed by a bevy of heavy-hitting technology investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Peter Chernin’s Playa Vista-based venture capital firm The Chernin Group, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to funding database PitchBook Data Inc.
Each of these firms has an array of tech exits under its belt — Kleiner Perkins has funded hundreds of startups since its 1972 launch, including Slack, Uber Technologies, and Beyond Meat. The Chernin Group invested in radio app Pandora and camera doorbell maker Ring, which Amazon bought for $1.5 billion in 2018. Lightspeed Venture Partners contributed funds to Snap Inc., and Giphy.
Some Cameo celebrities use the money for charitable initiatives — especially since star-studded fundraising galas have been suspended during the pandemic. In March, comedian Busy Phillipps donated her Cameo proceeds to World Central Kitchen and No Kid Hungry, while Mandy Moore and her “This is Us” co-star Chris Sullivan raised money for No Kid Hungry the same month. “Pose” actor Billy Porter recently joined Cameo to raise money for the AIDS/HIV-focused charity (RED), Leopold said.
A Cameo-organized fundraiser for the NAACP raised $225,000, while the company’s Cameo Cares event to benefit various COVID-19 relief causes raised $725,000. “We’ve got a lot of celebrities raising money for causes specific to Black Lives Matter, like the NAACP Empowerment Fund or ACLU,” Leopold said.
Even Baskin devotes a portion of her earnings to her Tampa-based nonprofit Big Cat Rescue, Leopold said. In her videos to fans, Baskin often shows off her tigers and their enclosures. “We don’t know if we will ever resume doing general public tours again,” Baskin recently wrote on the Big Cat Rescue website. “Even after the virus concerns subside, the betrayal by the liars who produced ‘Tiger King,’ and the lies viewers were told in the series, creates a concern about having visitors we do not know.” (Baskin did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)
Stars can also decline requests — allowing Baskin to sidestep uncomfortable questions raised in the “Tiger King” series (including those about the mysterious disappearance of ex-husband Jack “Don” Lewis). Leopold said Cameo screens for hate speech and known racist or defamatory acronyms, with help from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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While the pandemic has been good for Cameo’s business, Csathy said he expects the platform and practice of livestreaming will endure. “Cameo has absolutely profited from the pandemic,” Csathy said. “Everybody — celebrities and fans — is more comfortable communicating virtually because they were forced to do it in this pandemic.”
Cameo offers a more direct and personalized approach to meet-and-greets, but other tech companies are using similar tech to bring virtual artist experiences to fans.
Culver City-based Wave VR raised $30 million in June to further its virtual event technology, and has hosted over 50 virtual concerts with avatars of musicians. Twitch, launched as a platform for gamers, is increasingly hosting live music and social events. Some artists looking to cater to a younger, game-obsessed crowd have hosted virtual concerts and movie screenings inside video games — in May, Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” premiered within Epic Games’ “Fortnite” multiplayer game while rapper Travis Scott hosted over 12 million viewers at a virtual “Fortnite” concert in April.
Cameo could turn out to be “the poster child of virtual engagement between artists and fans,” Csathy said. The practice of paying for exclusive access for limited celebrity appearances isn’t new, but Cameo has found an efficient way to evolve the process. “Cameo’s nothing really new, it’s just taken it to a whole other level,” he said. “Fans have always paid for access, and now there’s a more personal way to engage and get special attention and that’s powerful.”
'Groundhog Day' and 14 Other Movies That Repeat the Same Day Over and Over (Photos)
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You know a movie is special when people describe it as "Groundhog Day" crossed with... something you'd never expect. Here are a handful of films that were inspired by or informed a similar time loop story as the Bill Murray rom-com classicColumbia Pictures Corporation
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“12:01” (1993) • The short story on which “12:01” is based actually pre-dates “Groundhog Day” by nearly 20 years. It’s about a man caught reliving the worst day of his life when his wife is shot and killed. After receiving an electrical shock at midnight, he relives the previous day and finds that things get worse.New Line Television
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“Run Lola Run” (1998) • Tom Tykwer’s action classic takes the time looping premise and turns it into a kinetic, real-time thrill ride. The title character Lola goes on a 20-minute dash as repeated several times, with each time depicting slight changes in the story that invoke ideas about parallel realities and moral choice.Sony Pictures Classics
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“50 First Dates” (2004) • Leave it to Adam Sandler to make another rom-com aping a “Groundhog Day” premise. In this one, Drew Barrymore only thinks she’s living the same day over and over because she has an affliction in which she can’t remember the previous day, but it doesn't stop Sandler from trying to win her over. Short-term memory loss is a real thing, but not Barrymore’s specific affliction.Columbia Pictures Corporation
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“Primer” (2004) • One of the more creative indie time travel stories you’re likely to see, Shane Carruth’s lo-fi thriller is a densely plotted science fiction story about two entrepreneurial inventors who accidentally invent a device that allows them to travel back in time for a few hours at a time. Carruth keeps us in the dark as to what they’ve actually invented until well into the film, and it maintains its tension as it evolves into a character study of these two men trying to double cross the other.THINKFilm
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“Source Code” (2011) • Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up in someone else’s body eight minutes before a terrorist attack blows up the train he’s riding on. It’s his job to use that time to find the terrorist and stop the attack. The movie’s first eight minutes are its best when he realizes that he’s living someone else’s final moments. Director Duncan Jones uses the sci-fi set up as a parable for the frustration of being used as a tool and the nature of free will within each alternate reality.Summit Entertainment
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“Edge of Tomorrow” a.k.a. “Live. Die. Repeat.” (2014) • This is one of Tom Cruise’s most underrated roles. We watch him die on an endless loop as he tries to learn how to win in a war against aliens, with each of his lives playing out like a video game in which he gains experience and gets closer to winning. But its charm comes from a sardonic sense of humor and Cruise’s relationship with a hard-nosed soldier played by Emily Blunt. In the end, she ends up killing him in training more times than the aliens do.Warner Bros. Pictures
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“Naked” (2017) • It’s “Groundhog Day” with no clothes! Phil Connors at least didn’t have to relive the same humiliation Marlon Wayans does, where he wakes up naked hours before his wedding day and has to repeat things over and over until he gets things right. The film is actually a remake of a Swedish film from 2000.Netflix
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“Before I Fall” (2017) • What if “Groundhog Day” was about a mean girl? Zoey Deutch stars as a San Francisco teen with a “perfect” high school life until she’s killed in a car accident. When she repeats the same day of her death, she starts to reassess her relationships and unravel the mystery around her accident.Open Road Films/Universal Pictures
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"Happy Death Day" (2017) and "Happy Death Day 2U" (2019) • "Happy Death Day" is a horror movie about a woman played by Jessica Rothe who has to relive a murder at the hands of a killer in a baby face mask until she can outsmart him and survive. And following the success of that film, the sequel, "Happy Death Day 2U," winks at that premise by having Rothe's character dying all over again...again. And this time, both her and her friends are caught in this vicious death loop.Universal Pictures
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"See You Yesterday" (2019) • Stefon Bristol's time-travel Netflix drama, produced by Spike Lee, features two high-school science geniuses (Eden Duncan-Smith and Dante Crichlow) who keep traveling back to the same day when their first trip back in time ends in tragedy. It combines critiques of racial profiling and over-policing with light moments, including a cameo from "Back to the Future" star Michael J. Fox.Netflix
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"The Obituary of Tunde Johnson" (2019) • This drama played at TIFF and tells the story of a black, gay teenager who is killed in an unprovoked incident of police brutality, only to wake up on the same morning and relive the day of his death.Toronto Film Review
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"Palm Springs" (2020) • This film starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti sold for a then-record $17.5 million to Neon and Hulu when it premiered at Sundance. The sci-fi comedy stars Milioti as a woman dreading attending a wedding, only to be drawn to Samberg and get caught up in his own infinite time loop. "Palm Springs" explores personal trauma, depression and guilt for as many wacky set pieces and dance numbers it also has.Sundance Institute
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"The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" (2021) • "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" directly name-drops "Groundhog Day" and "Edge of Tomorrow" but is a coming of age rom-com about two 17-year-olds who are the only ones aware they're caught in the time loop. Kyle Allen and Kathryn Newton star in the film.Amazon Studios
Let’s do the time loop again
Samson Amore
Reporter • samson.amore@thewrap.com • Twitter: @Samsonamore