Sacha Baron Cohen Offers To Pay The Fine For 6 Czech Dudes Who Wore His Borat Mankini In Kazakhstan

AP News- Comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen has offered to pay the fines for six Czech tourists who were reportedly detained by authorities in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana for dressing up as his character Borat.

Sporting lime green “mankinis” and black wigs, the men had hoped to take a picture in front of the “I Love Astana” sign earlier this month.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Baron Cohen says: “To my Czech mates who were arrested. Send me your details and proof that it was you, and I’ll pay your fine.”

Sacha Baron Cohen is a comedic genius. He invented 3 truly original, distinct characters in Ali G, Borat, and Bruno (I suppose you could throw in that dictator character, but that movie was terrible). He mined these 3 characters for all they were worth and then eventually had to retire them all, once the public became too familiar with them. I can’t imagine working for a decade to develop these characters, achieving massive success and elevating them to celebrity status, and then having to retire them because of that very success. A blessing and a curse.

But Borat the movie came out over a decade ago, and the character endures today. Sacha Baron Cohen literally put Kazakhstan on the map, for better or for worse. Nobody in the West would have ever been able to find that country on a map, and now, it holds an identity synonymous with the movie–a fact that the Kazakhs were none too happy with. The government threatened to sue him for his portrayal of Kazakhstan, but once the movie blew up, they had to embrace it. And even today, you’ve got a bunch of Czech bros donning the Borat mankini and traipsing through town. No wonder Cohen offered to pay their fines–has to warm his heart to be reminded of the staying power of his character.

If you haven’t seen Borat in a while, go watch it again. You’ll discover things you completely forgot and you’ll be howling. It’s so brilliant. It makes me feel like such a piece of shit when I do man on the street segments because that’s basically what Sacha Baron Cohen did for an entire movie and there was never a dull moment. Here’s hoping he can develop some new characters and bring back his trademark comedic fearlessness.

PS- can you imagine this scene today?