Perez Hilton, Brüno, And "The Gay-Panic Offense"

Perez Hilton is getting a storm of publicity after calling someone a faggot, and Brüno, a movie that Dennis Lim calls a "big gay joke," is advertising everywhere. What does this mean for gay stereotypes in the media? [Jezebel]

Why Wasn't Sacha Baron Cohen In Character on Letterman Last Night?

Not that we minded, because the real guy is pretty charming and a great raconteur, but it was just curious because in the past the comedian, currently promoting Brüno, has been so committed to in-character appearances. More »

Never Throw Your Drink at Anna Kournikova

Anna Kournikova viciously brawls with another woman in a Vegas club, Leighton Meester sings and acts in a video for Cobra Starship, Michael Jackson looked frail on stage at his concert rehearsals and Chris Brown gets shut down by Jay-Z. More »

'Bruno' Strips For Conan

Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno doesn't open in the U.S. until July 10th, but he's already out doing press for the film. Tonight he was the guest on The Tonight Show and, of course, he was utterly ridiculous. More »

The Megan Fox Topless Photos You've All Been Waiting For

The week she's starring in a blockbuster film release, nude photos of Megan Fox magically appear on the internet, Artie Lange is banned from the Tonight Show, Lindsay Lohan goes berserk in a club, and Paris dishes on boning Ronaldo. More »

Daily Show Exposes Fox & Friends' Hypocrisy Over Its 'Bruno'/Eminem Outrage

Remember when "Bruno" fell bare-assed into Eminem's lap at the MTV Movie Awards? Well, the fine folks over at Fox & Friends were so offended by that tasteless skit that they went outside to play football with women in lingerie! More »

Bruno Lawyers Will Send Mean Letters To Anyone Who Dares To Sue Them

Last week Richelle Olson filed a lawsuit against the producers of Bruno, claiming she was injured during filming. Bruno's lawyers say ich don't think so: they're threatening a countersuit, claiming it was actually Olson who assaulted Sacha Baron Cohen. More »

Eminem 'Thrilled' To Have Had Sacha Baron Cohen's Butt in His Face

There are some people who still insist that the Bruno/Eminem bare-ass "69" thing was not staged. These people are idiots. Eminem confirmed this for us once and for all tonight. More »

The First of Many Future Bruno Lawsuits Filed

Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat produced a number of lawsuits filed by people who were duped by Cohen and humiliated on a broad scale. Now Bruno hasn't even been released on theaters yet and he's already being sued. More »

Amy Winehouse Eats Tequila Shots for Breakfast

Today in celebrity fluff: Amy Winehouse is a morning drinker, Eminem was robbed, Lindsay Lohan storms through London, Simon Cowell reaches out to help Susan Boyle, Lily Allen has a nip slip, and Paris Hilton may get married this summer. More »

Paula Abdul Thinks She's Huge in Austria

Hah, oh dear. It seems that Paula Abdul, cat-litter-mouthed judge of American Idol singers, was duped by Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno character in his new film. And she still doesn't know it. More »

'Bruno' Exposes Himself to Ron Paul

Hah, Ron Paul will be in Bruno. Sacha Baron Cohen lured him to studio with the promise of a serious interview about economics, and instead, obviously, it became a gay panic joke. More »

New Bruno Movie Hilarious, Familiar

So say the early reports from a 20-minute screening that played at the SXSW festival in Austin over the weekend. Said a THR reporter: "It's funny deja vu, but it's still deja vu." More »

'Bruno' To Highlight Best of Spring/Summer Urban Crucifixwear

True—horrifying Southern socialites by wielding a bag of your own feces at a dinner party might be a showstopper, but what to do for an encore? That's the dilemma facing Sacha Baron Cohen. More »

Sacha Baron Cohen Apparently Unaware of Dutch 'Borat' Spin-Off Premiering Next Week

An ad currently running on Variety is promoting something called Carmen Meets Borat, a documentary about a Romanian girl whose life is thrown into upheaval when Sacha Baron Cohen and co. substitute her village for the title character's Kazakh hometown in Borat. We use the term "promoting" loosely, however, unless you consider "inviting a lawsuit by alerting Cohen to your existence" is promoting: More »

Meet Tomorrow's Asher-Shtupping Stars Of 'Bruno' Today!

As we've learned from his last big screen effort, Sacha Baron Cohen employs a wide variety of low-tech tricks to sell his comedy illusions. For example, to create those Borat Polaroids in which his face grazed his teenage son's exposed manhood, a gay porn star was hired who looked young enough to be the Kazakh's spawn. But with follow-up Bruno, the stakes and degree of technical difficulty have upped considerably. More »

Bruno Protests 'Asher-Shtupping' At 'Yes On 8' Rally: Now With Video!

Video has surfaced of Sacha Baron Cohen's storming of a Yes on Prop 8 rally outside City Hall over the weekend, posted by an irate Third Rail Media who claim the British comedian's crew physically pushed their cameras out of the way. As it's hard for us to get too swept up in the struggles of guerrilla videographers attending a rally protesting basic human rights for gays, we'll instead focus on the antics of the Austrian fashionista: Yet again, Bruno risks his own bodily safety in the name of his higher prank-comedy calling, and in the process secures some mildly amusing footage in which he explains to an angry religious zealot that his sign, "ASHERS ARE FOR SCHEISSING, NOT FOR SHTUPPING," actually places both men safely on the same side of the Gays Are Sinning Sodomites Who Must Be Stopped At All Costs debate. More »

Bruno's Straight Man? A report this morning suggests Sacha Baron Cohen did not visit yesterday's Yes on 8 rally as the flamboyant firebrand Bruno, but rather as the comic's newer, closeted character Straight Dave. While that would no doubt explain his mall-refugee threads, confusion persists about the language barrier that would influence Straight Dave's placard to reject gay marriage "even zough zey're nice." And that is Bruno's Milan-crashing coiffure. Yes? No? Make your voice heard — the issues can wait. [Filmdrunk via Spout Blog]

Bruno Lends His Support To Fashion-Challenged 'Yes On 8' Rally

In Pershing Square yesterday, Defamer stood alongside fellow Californians waging war against the evil Prop 8, hoisting placards and cheering wildly as passing vehicles (including city buses and cop cars) honked their support for equal civil rights for all. Meanwhile, at a Yes on 8 rally outside City Hall, none other than Austrian fashion journalist and trendspotter Brüno had infiltrated the scene. (Amazingly, The Sun once again reports he was there to shoot footage for "Brüno: 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," our own parody title that simply refuses to die.) People reports that once Sacha Baron Cohen was discovered, his "own camera crew worked to shield him. Eventually, he was escorted away inside a van"—the suspiciously swishy hunter became the hunted! We salute what must have been an incredibly difficult decision for Bruno to wear Dockers, a Men's Warehouse shirt, and no hair product in order to blend with the unfabulous crowd more efficiently. More photos after the jump: More »

'Bruno' Takes Milan: A Sacha Baron Cohen Couture Scrapbook

After a lull in Bruno sightings that felt like an unfabulous forever, Universal's $42-million dollar man leapt back onto the publicity hamster wheel Thursday with an appearance at Fashion Week in Milan. From the looks of the accompanying news video, things probably could have gone better with the police (have you ever spent the night in a squalid, rapey Italian jail?), but from the looks of the wire photos snapped before security shot out the lights, Sacha Baron Cohen's trailblazing German model clearly outmatched any of the dingy frocks in Agatha Ruiz de la Prada's spring collection. More »

Borat Walks Free: A judge in New York threw out a trio of lawsuits accusing Sacha Baron Cohen, director Larry Charles and the rest of the sadistic Borat braintrust of duping interview subjects into infamous levels of stupidity while making the 2006 hit film. "Judge Loretta Preska said all three accepted money and signed agreements releasing the filmmakers from liability," reports the AP. "She noted in a Sept. 3 ruling the agreements said the plaintiffs consented to appear in a 'documentary-style' movie." Of course you saw it coming, but hey. The plaintiffs — including Borat's driving instructor and his feces-scandalized etiquette coach — could not be reached for comment, but are said to plan handwritten thank-you cards for Her Honor's consideration and an armed vigilante drive-by not to exceed 25 miles per hour. [THR]

Sacha Baron Cohen To Explore His Serious Side In Searing Immigration-Law Drama, 'Accidentes'

Always on the lookout for the next bushy-stashed, swarthily complected foreigner to add to his comedic repertoire, Sacha Baron Cohen has attached himself to a comedy pitch snapped up by Fox Atomic. From Bruno co-writer Peter Baynham, the movie is based on those ubiquitous billboards and DASH ads you've likely idled behind in traffic countless times before. Yes, Accidentes, the adventures of "el mejor abogado," is coming to a cinema near you: More »

Hellos and Goodbyes

· Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno exploits took him from Israel to Arkansas; his Sherlock Holmes adventures to come may or may not include the missus. More »

Isla Fisher Chooses Stardom Over Judaism, But All The Other Converted Actresses? Some Fine Lookin' Jews

When choosing between months of intensive studies spent hunched over a Torah preparing for your kiddushin (that’s betrothal for you goyum, which are non-Jews for you...non-Jews), and becoming a big star, it seems Isla Fisher has decided to go with the latter. As the Daily Mail reports, the potential redheaded successor to Lucille Ball’s slapstick throne has put off the conversion process in order to complete filming Confessions Of A Shopaholic. And fiance Sacha Baron Cohen’s ultra-religious parents just don’t see what all this movie stardom fuss is all about. The wedding date has reportedly been postponed, Cohen’s gone back to making Israelis cry as Bruno, and the wee Cohen baby is presumably in the hands of the only au pair they could find who hasn’t seen Borat. But Fisher isn’t the first actress to undergo conversion to Judaism for a guy — from Liz Taylor to Connie Chung, a diverse handful of stars became Jews in the name of love, though not every shattered wine glass led to a happy ending... More »

Robert Downey Jr. Vs. Sacha Baron Cohen: A Tale Of Two Holmes

With today's Variety report that Robert Downey Jr. will star in a mildly distracted Guy Ritchie's upcoming Sherlock Holmes for Warner Bros.—by all accounts, a much more reverential take on the mythical detective than the Columbia comedy announced just last week starring Sacha Baron Cohen—we thought we'd celebrate this latest Elementary! edition of our ongoing The End of Ideas series by comparing and contrasting the two competing projects: More »

Gay Wrestling And Rioting Rednecks: We're Going Out On A Limb And Guessing Sacha Baron Cohen Is Involved

Just one day after an Israeli political blogger's account of being ambushed in Jerusalem by Sacha Baron Cohen's voguing/strudel-loving alter ego was devoured by the Bruno-obsessed internets, comes news of strange events going down at a fair grounds in Little Rock that would appear to have the swarthy British prankster's riot-inciting fingerprints all over it. Arriving for what was billed on posters (pictured above) as "Blue Collar Brawlin': Hot Chicks, Cold Beer, Hardcore Fights," local cage-match fans instead got a generous helping of a different kind of man-on-man action: More »

Bruno Wondering How And Why A Delicious Chickpea Spread Would Call For The Annihilation Of Israel

Can't wait until May 15, 2009 to learn what Sacha Baron Cohen has cooked up for Bruno, only the latest swarthy foreigner from the comedian's repertoire to star in a feature-length film? The internet is teeming with sightings detailing the fictional Austrian TV personality's exploiten and vëreabouts. Some you may have spotted in our very own PrivacyWatch; but the latest comes to us via The Jewish Daily Forward, where recent dupee Yossi Alpher—an Israeli political blogger—describes his run in with Eurofashion greatness in Jerusalem: More »

Will Ferrell To Play Drunk, Naked Watson To Sacha Baron Cohen's Sherlock

If you've been longing for a re-pairing of rival NASCAR champions Ricky Bobby and Jean Girard, only this time in something a little more fog-enshrouded, well, then, hold on to your pipes: It was announced today that Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell will star in the working-titled Sherlock: Elementary Deductions For Solving Puzzling Murders Throughout Queen Victoria's London in a Deerslayer Hat—an updating of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic mysteries. From Variety.com: More »

Will This Be Funny?

Borat's Sacha Baron Cohen will play Sherlock Holmes to Will Ferrell's Watson in a new movie based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mystery series.

Ex-Stripper, Sadist Among 105 New Invitees to Join AMPAS

Hollywood's power list got a little more diffuse Monday when Diablo Cody, Marion Cotillard, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen were among 105 new invitees to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The number is the lowest since 2004, when the Academy instituted its "Riff-Raff Rule" limiting the annual invitee total to 137; that said, we're not sure what kind of internal politics and/or pledge drives would necessitate inviting Michael Haneke and Jet Li to assume even 1/6000th of the Oscar vote. Follow the jump for more of this year's celebrated AMPAS Cub Club! More »

The Curious Case Of The Fake Defamer 'Bruno' Title That Ate The Internets

One of the on-the-job hazards of being a composite industry blog/nonsense repository is that occasionally, something we may have intended as a puckish, lightly satirical jab—a joke, if you will—is misinterpreted as fact. One memorable instance had The Australian soberly repeating our take on Mel Gibson's pitch for an ABC Holocaust movie, featuring a "Braveheart-style battle with thousands of Jewish and Nazi combatants rushing at each other across an open field." In that vein, while researching a post on the release date of Universal's upcoming Bruno movie, we were taken aback to find that our proposed mock-title for the summer 2009 release—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—had been picked up by a vast array of sources, including: More »

'Bruno', Universal's $42 Mil Gay-Austrian Gamble, Gets His Release Date

We now know when to expect an answer to the "Bruno: Borat-level triumph or $42 million Universal folly?" question eating at Hollywood since first learning that the studio had shelled out that unconscionable sum for a feature-length prankumentary starring the heterosexually-threatening Sacha Baron Cohen character. From Variety: More »

Top Five Most Cringeworthy Facial Hair Moments In Cinematic History

We didn’t think it was possible, but the insanely dateable John Krasinski is not looking so hot these days. Due to an upcoming role in the Sam Mendes-directed Farlanders, John is sporting a nasty beard that resembles something one of the Geico cavemen would wear. And while we’d never judge an actor for tossing out their razors for months for the sake of their craft, this terrible beard inspired us to take a look back at the most cringeworthy facial hair in cinematic history. From one actor’s frizzy salt-and-pepper rat's nest to one mustache’s journey inside another man’s taint, our top five lie after the jump: More »