Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat ‘Defends’ Rudy Giuliani After Controversial ‘Borat 2’ Leaked Scene

Borat Sagdiyev has offered an “official statement” on that controversial scene from Borat Subsequent Moviefilm featuring Rudy Giuliani. On Thursday, Borat’s official Twitter account shared a video addressing the scene in question, showing Sacha Baron Cohen again channeling his onscreen counterpart as he gave a comical defense of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

In the satirical video, Borat declares, “I here to defend America’s Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.” He goes on to defend the encounter as an “innocent sexy time encounter between a consenting man and my 15-year-old daughter,” which has been “turned into something disgusting by fake news media.” He concluded his defense with a warning: “anyone else try this, and Rudolph will not hesitate to reach into his legal briefs and whip out his supenis.”

The “official statement” came just a day after the media embargo on reviews for the movie lifted, after which The Guardian detailed a questionable scene featuring Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, and Borat’s 15-year-old daughter, Tutar Sagdiyev (Maria Bakalova). Following a fake interview for a conservative news outlet, the two retreated to a hotel room rigged with hidden cameras, where Giuliani began to make advances and was seen on video reclined on the bed with his hand seemingly in his pants, apparently touching himself.

The scene immediately prompted outrage, though Giuliani was quick to dub it a “complete fabrication” and insist that nothing inappropriate occurred. In a statement released to Twitter, he said that what was reported as him having his hands in his pants, allegedly touching himself, was actually him “tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment” and that “at no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate.” He said that if Baron Cohen were to imply otherwise, “he is a stone-cold liar.”

The Borat sequel, just like the original film that was released in 2006, is a mockumentary comedy film starring Baron Cohen as Borat, a popular reporter from Kazakhstan who comes to the United States. The sequel is intentionally more political, along the lines of the actor’s Showtime series Who Is America. Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is being lauded by critics, with The Independent calling it “jaw-dropping.”