Sacha Baron Cohen responds to 'Borat 2' scene with Rudy Giuliani: 'He did what he did'
Though Rudy Giuliani is calling his headline-making "Borat 2" appearance a "complete fabrication," Sacha Baron Cohen is urging everyone to watch the movie and "make your own mind up" because it is "pretty clear" what happened.
"I would say that if the president's lawyer found what he did there appropriate behavior, then heaven knows what he's done with other female journalists in hotel rooms," Baron Cohen, 49, said Friday on "Good Morning America" of President Trump's attorney's role in the movie, out today. "It is what it is. He did what he did."
News broke earlier this week, when embargo for the "Borat" sequel lifted, of the former New York City mayor being featured in an allegedly inappropriate position in a hotel room with Baron Cohen's female co-star, Maria Bakalova.
The scene in question, shot in a New York hotel room in July, showed Giuliani on a bed while Bakalova, posing as a television journalist, is nearby. According to the Associated Press, Giuliani arrived at the hotel thinking he would be interviewed about President Trump's COVID-19 response when Bakalova became flirtatious with him and invited him to a bedroom rigged with hidden cameras after Baron Cohen, dressed as a crew member, ended the "interview." After asking for her phone number and address, Giuliani lies back on the bed to tuck in his shirt after Bakalova's character helps him remove his recording equipment and he has his hands in his pants. At this point, a disguised Baron Cohen, dressed in women's lingerie, quickly bursts in the room to stop the scene. These events resulted in Giuliani immediately calling police.
ABC News does not know what was left out in the editing of the scene.
On "GMA," Baron Cohen said he was "quite concerned" for Bakalova during the scene, but that he was in a hideaway the entire scene so he could monitor what was happening. He said, "It's my responsibility as a producer as well to ensure that the lead actor is looked after.
"I've always felt safe with our team, with our crew, with Sacha in my corner," Bakalova said on "GMA." "I actually never felt that I've been in danger. That's why I'm lucky, because I had them."
Giuliani, who finalized a divorce from his wife of 15 years in December 2019, took to his weekly radio program on WABC on Wednesday morning to call the scene featuring him "a hit job."
“I am tucking my shirt in, I assure you, that’s all that I was doing,” he said, adding that he realized something was up when the woman asked him if he wanted a massage.
Then, on Twitter, Giuliani unleashed a statement in four tweets, writing, "The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar."
"Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," the follow-up to Baron Cohen's hit 2006 mockumentary, treads familiar ground in featuring the character traveling the United States and exposing and poking fun at those with controversial opinions and beliefs, similar to Baron Cohen's "Who Is America?" series on Showtime from 2018.
