Former Donald Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani tried to incite New York police over the “Borat” team for “extortion” after he was filmed in an embarrassing scene lowering his pants on a hotel bed in Manhattan, revealed a producer of the film on Saturday.
The scene showed Giuliani lying on his back and reaching for his groin while “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” actress Maria Bakalova, in the role of a reporter, accompanied an interview with him. Giuliani says he was putting his shirt inside.
When he realized that he had received a prank from the crew, Giuliani “claimed that we were trying to extort him at the time [but] we didn’t ask for anything, ”said film producer Monica Levinson on a panel at the Producers Guild of America, which was first reported by Deadline.
“He called all New York law enforcement officers and said ‘extortion’, which was a federal crime,” added Levinson. It was “smart to bring it up”,
she added, indicating that she could get the police’s attention, although it was a completely false claim.
After the dust rose, the hotel locked the “Borat” team out of the suite where they had filmed Giuliani, Levinson said. But the team had already moved the footage out of the room. “It always comes out first,” she explained. “There are always ways to ensure that data is collected.”
But their equipment remained locked in the room, and they were forced to rent new equipment, she said, Deadline said. “It was a very stressful night because the hotel wouldn’t let us take anything out of the rooms,” she added.
Giuliani told the New York Post Page Six last summer that he called the New York police after “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen entered the hotel room in pink thong.
“This guy runs in, wearing a crazy outfit, which I would say is a pink transgender outfit,” Giuliani told Page Six, at a transphobic table. “It seemed absurd. He had a beard, bare legs and was not what I would call attractive.
He said that “it was only later that he realized that it must have been Sacha Baron Cohen. I thought of all the people he had previously cheated on and I felt good about myself because he didn’t understand me. “
Giuliani did not provide details to Page Six about his conversations with the municipal police. And he ended up in “Borat”.
Nothing resulted from Giuliani’s complaints, but Levinson was concerned at the time, after spending about 19 hours behind bars during the filming of the original 2006 “Borat”.
“We ended up talking to our lawyers,” said Levinson. “I called the production team and said, ‘We’re going to take everyone to New Jersey tonight.’ It was 11 o’clock at night. I didn’t want what happened to me in the first film to happen to the whole team ”.
Levinson was interviewed along with several other Zoom nominees as part of the preparation for the PGA’s virtual awards ceremony on Thursday. Levinson and Borat co-producers, Anthony Hines and Cohen, were nominated for the Best Theater Film Producer award.
Bakalova was nominated for an Oscar for her role in “Borat”. The film won the best comedy and Cohen won the best actor in a comedy at the Golden Globes.
Giuliani received a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. It was not possible to contact him immediately to comment on Levinson’s comments.
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