Rudy Giuliani tried to squeeze ‘Borat’ crew after humiliating scene, producer says

Former Donald Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani tried to denounce NYPD on ‘Borat’ squad for ‘extortion’ after being filmed in embarrassing scene pulling his pants down onto a hotel bed Manhattan, a producer of the film revealed on Saturday.

The scene showed Giuliani lying on his back and reaching out to his crotch as “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” actress Maria Bakalova, playing a reporter, stood after an interview with him. Giuliani claims he was tucking his shirt in.

When he realized he had been stuffed by the crew, Giuliani “claimed that we were trying to extort him at that time. [but] we didn’t ask for anything, ”film producer Monica Levinson said in a Producers Guild of America panel, which was first reported by Deadline.

“He called all of his New York cops and said ‘extortion’ which was a federal crime,” Levinson added. It was “smart to talk about it”,
she added, indicating that this could attract the attention of the police, even if it was a completely false claim.

After the dust, the hotel locked the “Borat” crew out of the suite where they filmed Giuliani, Levinson said. But the crew had already transferred the footage out of the room. “It’s always first,” she explained. “There are always ways to make sure we got the data.”

But their equipment remained locked in the room and they were forced to rent new equipment, she said, Deadline reported. “It was a really stressful time that night because the hotel wouldn’t let us take anything away from the rooms,” she added.

Giuliani told The New York Post’s Page Six last summer who called New York Police after “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen walked into the hotel room in a pink thong.

“This guy comes running in, dressed in a madman, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit,” Giuliani told Page Six, in a transphobic screed. “It sounded absurd. He had a beard, bare legs, and was not what I would call a distracting attraction.

He said he “didn’t realize until later that it had to be Sacha Baron Cohen. I thought about all the people he had fooled before and felt good about myself because he hadn’t understood me.

Giuliani did not provide details to Page Six about his conversations with city police. And he ended up in “Borat”.

Nothing came of Giuliani’s complaints, but Levinson was worried at the time after spending some 19 hours behind bars while filming the 2006 original ‘Borat’.

“We ended up confused with our lawyers,” Levinson said. “I called the production crew and said, ‘Let’s get everyone to New Jersey tonight.’ It was 11 o’clock in the evening. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened to me in the first movie to happen to the whole crew. ”

Levinson was interviewed with several other nominees on Zoom in preparation for the PGA Virtual Awards ceremony on Thursday. Anthony Hines and Cohen, co-producers of Levinson and Borat, were nominated for the award for best producer of motion pictures.

Bakalova was nominated for an Oscar for her role in “Borat”. The film won Best Comedy and Cohen won Best Actor in a Comedy at the Golden Globes.

Giuliani won a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. He could not be reached immediately for comment on Levinson’s remarks.