We rely on Sacha Baron Cohen’s undercover schtick to expose the cruelest and most clueless to public ridicule. Showtime’s short-lived Who Is America? continued that tradition with such viral stunts as unmasking a Georgia state representative’s willingness to use racial epithets, but some gags are too extreme for even Cohen. As the Ali G and Borat prankster now reveals, one un-aired sting nearly exposed a Las Vegas pedophile ring, and caught the attention of the F.B.I.
Speaking with Deadline, Cohen revealed his “Gio Moldonado” character filmed an interview with an unspecified Las Vegas hotel concierge that broached the subject of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault cases. Cohen then pivoted toward “extreme comedy,” implying his character had molested a young boy, though the concierge didn’t react as anticipated. “We thought that the guy would leave the room,” recalled Cohen. “Instead, this concierge stays in the room and I go, ‘listen, you’ve got to help me get rid of the problem.’ And this guy starts advising Gio how to get rid of this issue. We even at one point talk about murdering the boy, and the concierge is just saying, ‘well, listen, I’m really sorry. In this country, we can’t just drown the boy. This is America we don’t do that.’”
Cohen went on to explain how the concierge offered to connect him with a lawyer to silence the boy, but that wasn’t the end of it. His character next inquired if the concierge could fetch him a “date” with a boy “lower than Bar Mitzvah but older than eight,” and the concierge reportedly replied “yeah, I can put you in touch with somebody who can get you some boys like that.” The stunt was considered “too dark and wrong” for even This Is America, and Cohen’s team subsequently sent their footage to the F.B.I. to investigate. According to Cohen, the bureau evidently decided not to pursue the matter, though the actor noted “This concierge had said that he’d worked for politicians and various billionaires.”
Cohen’s stunt-gone-wrong wasn’t the only instance of Who Is America cutting a few misfires. There’s the famously un-aired segment with Sarah Palin (her pre-premiere outrage earned her a Special Publicity Consultant (Inadvertent)” credit), and Cohen also revealed Ben Carson was pulled from a segment before appearing on-camera. “The upsetting answer is, I don’t think you missed much,” Cohen said of the Palin interview. “There was a lot of pressure on me from the channel to put out Palin . . . But ultimately, I looked at the footage and it just wasn’t funny enough.“ Cohen earned a Golden Globe nod for his Who Is America performance, ultimately leaving him with the last laugh (if not a medal from the F.B.I.)
