The latest October surprise erupted on Wednesday and came courtesy of an unexpected source: Borat provocateur and prankster Sacha Baron Cohen.
Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and personal lawyer to President Trump, became the focus of the news cycle after being caught on film in a shocking and compromising scene in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Cohen’s new sequel to his subversive 2006 breakout mockumentary, Borat.
In one of the film’s final stunts, Borat’s daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova), poses as a reporter for a fake far-right news outlet called Patriots Report, which has somehow wangled an on-camera interview with Giuliani at a New York City hotel.
Tutar gushes over the controversial politician, displaying faux nervousness over meeting “one of her greatest heroes.” There’s a flirty undertone to their whole exchange — along with an undeniable creepiness — and at one point the pair offers a toast with what appears to be whisky. Though there doesn’t appear to be anyone else from a video crew present in the hotel suite, Cohen does at one point crash the interview, posing in disguise as a sound technician, but Giuliani clearly doesn’t recognize the comedian before he exits.
The interview itself is inflammatory: “China manufactured the virus and let it out, and they deliberately spread it around the world,” says Giuliani, embracing a disproven internet conspiracy theory.
But then the situation becomes more fraught: Bakalova, whose character, Tutar, is oft-referred to as being only 15 years old, leads Giuliani into an adjacent bedroom. Giuliani suggests Bakalova give him her phone number and address as they remove each other’s microphones. Guiliani pats Bakalova on the waist. Then, lying on his back on the bed, Giuliani lowers his hand into his pants as Bakalova stands nearby.
At that point, Cohen comes crashing back into the room — this time wearing a wig and women’s undergarments. “She’s 15, she’s too old for you!” Cohen yells.
Giuliani quickly bolts, calling to his security detail in the hallway. “Rudy, Trump will be disappointed. You are leaving hotel without golden shower,” Cohen shouts after him.
Although the scene was filmed months ago, Giuliani appeared on New York’s WABC radio and claimed his inclusion in the movie was in retaliation for the unconfirmed story that he delivered to the New York Post last week claiming Joe Biden’s son Hunter was involved in shady business dealings.
“I had to take off the electronic equipment,” Giuliani said. “And when the electronic equipment came off, some of it was in the back and my shirt ... came a little out, although my clothes were entirely on. I leaned back, and I tucked my shirt in, and at that point, at that point, they have this picture they take which looks doctored, but in any event, I’m tucking my shirt in. I assure you that’s all I was doing.”
“They’ll do anything. They’ve attacked me over everything possible, investigated every business dealing I’ve ever had,” he said. “And now the idiot Borat is going after me with a totally sensationalized false account of a ridiculous movie I guess that he’s done.
“Now let me tell you why I know this is a hit job that happens because it’s not an accident that it happens when I turn in all this evidence on their prince and darling Joe Biden, who’s one of the biggest crooks in the last 30 years, and since I have the courage to say that, I’m the target.”
Giuliani subsequently took to Twitter to profess his innocence — though he has not explained why he followed Bakalova into the bedroom, patted her waist, asked for her personal information or lay down on his back.
The To Catch a Predator moment is perhaps the most stunning in a film that has an abundance of them, from Cohen ordering a cake frosted with the Charlottesville cries of “Jews will not replace us” to persuading QAnon adherents in Washington state to let him stay in their house to turning up dressed in full Ku Klux Klan regalia at the Conservative Political Action Conference where Vice President Mike Pence is speaking.
Reviews for Borat 2 — which have been mostly positive — began being published Wednesday morning, but word of the scandalous Giuliani scene quickly dominated social media.
Among the biggest outstanding questions: Did Giuliani know the age of the reporter he was speaking to? (Although she was playing a teenager in the film, Bakalova is 24 in real life, according to IMDb.) And why did Giuliani’s team agree to do an interview with an unverified news outlet in the first place? (Giuliani said in the radio interview that he thought the outlet was “legitimate.”)
Back in July, Giuliani spokeswoman Christianné Allen suggested in a series of tweets that they had “foiled Sacha Cohen’s attempted scam-interview, ultimately ending in a stupefied Cohen.”
Allen, apparently unaware of her boss’s bedroom activities caught on film, added in subsequent tweets: “Cohen barged onto the set screaming hysterically while wearing a multi-colored bikini with a mesh sash.
“Un-fooled and placid, Mayor Giuliani notified security to call the police. It was then, upon hearing the word police, Cohen turned from a screaming banshee into a fleeing hyena. I hear he was last seen running down the street in his bathrobe. Better luck next time, Sacha!”
In his radio interview on Wednesday, Giuliani reiterated that his team called the police on Cohen. The former mayor also portrayed himself as the victim. “Everybody in Hollywood hates me, you know, right?” he said. “I’m a devil in Hollywood. Nothing about me comes out in that period of time, nothing sensational about me in the movie. Now all of a sudden there’s all this sensational stuff about me in the movie. Don’t know if it was added, doctored, manipulated, whatever.
“I was fully clothed at all times.”
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm premieres Friday on Amazon Prime.
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