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Sacha Baron Cohen claims FBI went after him while filming Borat

'[The FBI] got so many complaints there was a terrorist traveling in an ice cream van'

Jack Shepherd
Thursday 25 February 2016 15:16 GMT
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An interview with Borat threatened to almost end the political career of James Broadwater
An interview with Borat threatened to almost end the political career of James Broadwater

While Sacha Baron Cohen has played numerous risqué, from Brüno to Ali G, none will likely ever cause quite as much controversy as Borat, the Kazakh journalist.

The 2006 film saw the character head to the US and cause quite a commission among locals by doing increasingly bizarre stunts.

When speaking to WTF with Marc Maron, Cohen revealed that his stunts attracted not only attention from the average citizen, but also from the FBI.

“[The FBI] got so many complaints there was a terrorist traveling in an ice cream van,” Cohen explained (via EW). “So the FBI got so many complaints that they started compiling a little file on us and eventually they came to visit us at the hotel. I obviously went missing when I heard because they were like ‘FBI’s downstairs. Sacha, disappear.’”

The comedian/actor added that they had to hire a man to protect him, the crew and even his wife, Isla Fisher.

“We hire a guy and his job is, he’s a bit like [Grimsby’s] Nobby, actually… his job is to prevent me from being arrested,” he added after saying that Kansas police issued a warning saying if anything else happened they would be arrested.

When filming continued, the police were called, and Cohen jumped out of a window under the advice of his bodyguard, in the process breaking his heal and shutting down production for a while.

Cohen is currently promoting his film Grimsby.

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