Zach Weiner, City Council Candidate in Leaked Dominatrix Sex Tape, Makes Documentary, Admits to Stunt

A Manhattan actor and screenwriter ran for city council to make a political satire about it – and staged a video of himself with a dominatrix for the mockumentary, his campaign manager admitted.

Zack Weiner, a certified candidate in the Sixth District on the Upper West Side, came last in the June 22, 2021 Democratic primary with 959 votes. Former Borough President Gale Brewer ultimately won the seat in a landslide in the November 2, 2021 election.

As a climax to his made-up campaign, Weiner shot into the spotlight with a video posted on Twitter that showed the shirtless candidate gagging while a leather-clad dominatrix dripped hot wax on him and clamped clothespins to his nipples.

It was all part of an elaborate hoax. Weiner, whose father Eric Weiner co-created the famous children’s TV show “Dora the Explorer,” played a dirty trick on himself that duped the media, the public – and the people he urged to vote for him.

At the time, Weiner’s team reported the video to the Post, claiming they wanted to stay ahead of political opponents who might use it as a weapon.

“I am a proud BDSMer. I like BDSM activities,” Weiner said at the time, referring to sexual acts such as bondage, dominance and sadomasochism.

But Weiner’s friend Joe Gallagher, a fellow actor and screenwriter who served as campaign manager, admitted this week that the entire campaign served as the basis for her satirical “reality film” inspired by the Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer sex scandals.

“It was just something we filmed for the campaign,” Gallagher told The Post. “We decided we wanted to do a kind of political comedy. And Zack actually had an idea. He wanted to write a script about a local politician or bureaucrat who profits from a scandal.”

The dominatrix stunt made international headlines and made nighttime hilarity for Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Greg Gutfeld, among others. In the film, Weiner and his campaign aides roar with laughter at Colbert’s jokes.

In addition to The Post, other major news outlets covered the story, including The Guardian, the Jerusalem Post, the Daily Mail, Teen Vogue and Vice. In the film, “Fly Me to the Moon,” sung by Frank Sinatra, plays amid a barrage of news clippings and commentary about Weiner.

The film’s big reveal comes in the final scene, where Weiner is seen with the dominatrix taking off the mouth gag.

“How was that, Joe, did we understand it?” He asks Gallagher off-screen, who replies: “Yeah, that should work.”

The entire affair is now the focus of “Citizen Weiner,” an 80-minute film that will premiere Tuesday at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan’s East Village.