Rudy Giuliani arrived Tuesday at a Manhattan hotel for what he thought was a serious interview about the coronavirus – but ended up calling the police on bikini-wearing prankster Sacha Baron Cohen.
Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s attorney and the former New York mayor, told the New York Post’s Page Six that he settled in for a sit-down about the White House response to the pandemic.
A woman began to ask questions and then, Giuliani said, “This guy comes running in, wearing a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit. It was a pink bikini, with lace, underneath a translucent mesh top, it looked absurd. He had the beard, bare legs, and wasn’t what I would call distractingly attractive.”
Giuliani said he didn’t immediately recognise the “screaming and yelling” actor. “I thought this must be a scam or a shake-down, so I reported it to the police,” he told the gossip section. “He then ran away.”
Witnesses saw Cohen bolt from the Mark Hotel in a bathrobe, the tabloid noted. Cops arrived, but didn’t seek to apprehend Cohen, who recently infiltrated a far-right rally in Olympia, Washington, and goaded the crowd into a racist singalong.
Giuliani told Page Six he realised later that it must have been Cohen. “I felt good about myself because he didn’t get me,” he said.
Giuliani said he’s a fan of Cohen’s movie Borat and even quoted one of his favourite lines.
Some entertainment sites, including Deadline, speculated the stunt could be for another instalment of Cohen’s “Who Is America?” prank series on Showtime. The show aired for one season in 2018.