While campaigning in South Carolina on Tuesday, Newt Gingrich said he brought in so much cash money in the past by simply making speeches that he never needed to be a lobbyist.

"I did no lobbying of any kind – period," Gingrich said, according to the Huffington Post. "I'm going to be really direct, OK? I was charging $60,000 a speech. And the number of speeches was going up, not down. Normally, celebrities leave and they gradually sell fewer speeches every year. We were selling more."

Gingrich has come under a bit of fire recently for reports that he was paid at least $300,000 (some reports say as much as $1.6 million) by home mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Some have suggested Gingrich was working as a lobbyist. He says he was acting as a "historian."