The former mayor of New York City and current personal attorney to President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, is the latest in a line of politicians and other public figures to be foiled by a Sacha Baron Cohen character. In this case, it’s his most famous creation, Borat, in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the sequel to 2006’s Borat, which — yes, spoilers ahead, so feel free to stop here for that reason, among others — features a climactic scene in which Maria Bakalova, the actress playing Borat’s daughter in the film, poses as a journalist while asking Giuliani questions about Trump’s COVID-19 response.
After the interview, however, Giuliani moves into a hotel bedroom for a drink, where he asks for the journalist’s phone number and eventually lies back in the bed and places a hand inside of his trousers, as described by The Guardian.
Following an obsequious interview for a fake conservative news programme, the pair retreat at her suggestion for a drink to the bedroom of a hotel suite, which is rigged with concealed cameras.
After she removes his microphone, Giuliani, 76, can be seen lying back on the bed, fiddling with his untucked shirt and reaching into his trousers. They are then interrupted by Borat who runs in and says: “She’s 15. She’s too old for you.”
The actress playing the journalist, Maria Bakalova, is not 15 years old, and there is no indication in the film that Giuliani believes her to be underage. However, the footage contained in the film stands in stark contrast to the way that Giuliani’s described the incident in July, when he called the police after the incident, remarking at the time, “I thought about all the people he previously fooled and I felt good about myself because he didn’t get me.”
Meanwhile, tweets from Giuliani’s communications director in July describing the incident do not reflect the reality of the situation, either.
These July tweets from @RudyGiuliani's communications director @Christianne_L_A turned out to be as absurd as they sound.
Also she's truly using North Korean/autocratic flourishes here. pic.twitter.com/pSyO6kMaZG
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2020
Giuliani has not yet commented on the scene in the film. Ironically, however, his last retweet — delivered before this story broke — referred to alleged photos of underage girls contained in a hard drive Giuliani purports belongs to Hunter Biden.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video this Friday, October 23rd. The film also features scenes from a Three Percenter rally, captured on video, that went viral back in August.
UPDATE – 6:00pm EST: Giuliani has responded to the controversy in a phone call interview with WABC radio. Via the Daily Beast, the former NYC mayor is claiming that he was only “tucking my shirt in” during the scene. He also asserts that he’s the subject of a “hit job” due to his accusations against Hunter Biden:
“I had to take off the electronic equipment. 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. 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 that I turn in all this evidence on their prince and darling Joe Biden who’s one of the biggest crook in the last thirty years, and since I have the courage to say that I’m the target,”
(Via The Guardian & The Daily Beast)