This Sun story by Emily Smith says Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen was repeatedly slugged on the streets of Manhattan a week or so ago. It allegedly happened after he approached a guy and said, “I like your clothings. Are nice! Please may I buying? I want have sex with it.” (That’s a pretty exact quote — was Smith tape-recording the encounter?) The story says the guy “took one look at Cohen and punched him in the face, ” after which Cohen “yelled for help but was slugged again and again.”
Hold up…he yelled for help like Jerry Lewis would have if someone had attached him in an early ’50s Martin and Lewis comedy? If Smith’s reporting is accurate (and I’m not saying it necessarily is — she writes for the Sun, after all), she’s basically telling us that when push comes to shove, Cohen squeals like a little pig. I strongly doubt the accuracy of Smith’s story. Instinct usually takes over in encounters of this sort and you generally shove and hit back. But if it’s true (she writes that Cohen “was rescued by actor pal Hugh Laurie who had been on his way to a New York bar” with the Borat star), my respect for the man has just plummeted.