Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, tried to convict New York City police on the “Borat” squad for “extortion” after being filmed in an embarrassing scene that reached his pants down on a Manhattan hotel bed. a producer of the film revealed on Saturday.
The scene showed Giuliani lying on his back reaching for his crotch while “Borat Subsequent Movie Film” actress Maria Bakalova, who played a reporter, followed an interview with him. Giuliani claims he tucked in his shirt.
Realizing that he had been fooled by the crew, Giuliani claimed “that we were trying to blackmail him at the time. [but] we didn’t ask for anything, ”said film producer Monica Levinson in a Producers Guild of America panel first reported by Deadline.
He called all of his New York City police and said ‘extortion,’ which was a federal crime, ” Levinson added. It was “smart to bring that up”,
she added, indicating that it could attract the attention of the police, even if it was an utterly false claim.
After the dust picked up, the hotel locked the “Borat” crew out of the suite where they filmed Giuliani, Levinson said. But the crew had already removed the footage from the room. “It always comes first,” she explained. “There are always ways to make sure we have the data deleted.”
But their equipment remained locked in the room, and they were forced to rent new equipment, she said, Deadline reported. “It was a really stressful time that night as the hotel wouldn’t let us get anything out of the rooms,” she added.
Giuliani told Page Six of the New York Post last summer that New York City police called after “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen entered the hotel room in a pink thong.
“This guy comes running in, dressed in a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit,” Giuliani told Page Six, in a transphobic screed. It looked absurd. He had a beard, bare legs, and was not what I would call distractingly attractive. “
He said he “ didn’t realize until later that it must have been Sacha Baron Cohen. I thought about all the people he was making fun of before and I felt good about myself for not understanding me. “
Giuliani did not provide Page Six details of his conversations with the city police. And he ended up in “Borat”.
Nothing came from the Giuliani complaints, but Levinson was then concerned after spending about 19 hours behind bars while filming the original 2006 ‘Borat’.
“We eventually spoke to our lawyers,” said Levinson. “I called the production team and said, ‘Let’s take everyone to New Jersey tonight.’ It was 11 p.m. I didn’t want to repeat what happened to the entire crew on the first film. ”
Levinson was interviewed on Zoom along with several other nominees as part of the run-up to Thursday’s virtual PGA awards ceremony. Levinson and Borat co-producers Anthony Hines and Cohen have been nominated for the Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures award.
Bakalova has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in ‘Borat’. The film won Best Comedy and Cohen won Best Actor in a Comedy at the Golden Globes.
Giuliani has received a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. He could not be immediately reached for comment on Levinson’s comments.
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