Some politicians are going through the several stages of panic associated with an interview with Sacha Baron Cohen: remorse, damage control, anger and regret for being duped.
Sacha Baron Cohen has for years lured unwitting politicians into awkward interviews, adopting various personas to trick interviewees.
Now one of his latest targets, defeated Senate candidate Roy Moore, is threatening a defamation lawsuit over an upcoming episode of the comedian’s new television series.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Moore says he accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington in February after being told he’d receive an award for supporting Israel.
“I did not know Sacha Cohen or that a Showtime TV series was being planned to embarrass, humiliate, and mock not only Israel, but also religious conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Joe Walsh, and Dick Cheney,” Moore wrote on Facebook.
Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is running for U.S. Senate in Arizona, thought he was part of a show focusing on the top 20 most famous people in the United States.
Arpaio, 86, said he began to suspect something was amiss with the interview when Baron Cohen started using sexually explicit expressions.
He’s not sure yet whether he’d take any action against Baron Cohen, who posed as a Finnish actor and wore a disguise during an October 2017 interview in Los Angeles.
“If they do a good job, maybe I’ll send them a thank-you note,” Arpaio said.
“Who Is America?” premieres Sunday on Showtime.
The network has released few details about the show. Baron Cohen has posted only a cryptic clip of former Vice President Dick Cheney being asked to sign a water jug that a man – presumably Baron Cohen – calls his “waterboard kit.”
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