The actor famous for playing “Borat” tricked the Alabama National Guard into giving him a military uniform and allowed him to briefly train with them – a ruse that he told them was part of a German TV documentary.
The hoax – which included comedian Sacha Baron Cohen exposing his thong underwear while changing clothes – had the cadets fooled until an officer recognized the actor and notified his red-faced commanding officers.
“It’s an embarrassment to the Alabama National Guard,” Staff Sgt. Katrina Timmons told The Associated Press. “Since then we have put in protocols to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Cohen’s film crew pulled the stunt on Feb. 13 at the Alabama Military Academy, which trains officers from across the country. The school is located about 60 miles outside Birmingham.
Footage from the visit could be included in Cohen’s upcoming movie featuring his character Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion writer.
The film is entitled “Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable In The Presence Of A Gay Foreigner In A Mesh T-Shirt.”
Timmons said they let Cohen and his crew into the base because they believed they were helping a foreign journalist.
“They called and said they were a German affiliate of a TV station doing a documentary on what it was like to be in officer candidate school,” Timmons said. “They wanted to know if they could come here and embed one person for a few hours up to a day.”
Cohen’s spokesman Matthew Labov declined to comment this afternoon.
Cohen became famous for his portrayal of journalist Borat Sagdiyev in the 2006 hit “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” in which he played gags on people while traveling cross-country in an effort to meet former Playboy Playmate and “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson.