Sacha Baron Cohen Is in Hot Water for Paying O.J. Simpson $20k to Be in His Next Movie
Did the ‘Borat’ comedian finally cross the line?
Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comedian who outraged America with Borat and Brüno, has upset some more people: the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
The Ali G star paid disgraced Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Fame running back O.J. Simpson $20,000 to appear in his next movie, according to The Daily Mail.
An unnamed source told The Daily Mail that “Baron Cohen wore a curly dark wig and black, thick-rimmed glasses to meet Simpson in a Las Vegas hotel room.”
“OJ would not even get in the hotel room until he was paid a sackload of cash,” the source said. “There was no way Sacha could have got OJ into the room without paying money.”
Brown’s sister Tanya is outraged, saying in a statement, “Nicole and Ron are two human beings who were brutally murdered. This is not a joke nor is it entertainment. If Sacha makes this a comedic effort his victims will be personified as a joke.”
O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1995 but was later found liable of their deaths in 1997 and was ordered to pay the families $33.5 million, much of which still has not yet been paid,
Simpson was later sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in a 2007 armed robbery in Las Vegas. He was released in October.
Sacha Baron Cohen he yet to comment on the rumor, but The Daily Mail caught up with Simpson at a wine bar in Las Vegas and asked him about Baron Cohen
“I know him well. I met him,” Simpson told a reporter. “Nice guy.”
It won’t be Simpson’s first time on the big screen. Before he was the most hated man in America, he enjoyed a successful acting career and notably had a role in the 1988 comedy The Naked Gun and its 1991 sequel The Smell of Fear.