Following a season of high-profile humiliations British comedian Sacha Baren Cohen attempted to illicit a MURDER confession from OJ Simpson in the finale of his Who Is America? show.
He has tried to convince a former presidential candidate that Hilary Clinton is a man and convinced gun lobbyists to support a program getting three-year-old’s clued up on using weapons for self-defense.
But British comedian targeted OJ Simpson this time, posing as Italian photographer Gio Monaldo, to get a murder confession from the 71-year-old.
OJ Simpson reportedly had no idea he was being filmed as Sacha Baron Cohen pretended to be an Italian photographer
The comedian enlisted a fake girlfriend to try to get a murder confession from Simpson
In the Sunday night episode on Showtime, the eccentric character gained access into Simpson’s Las Vegas hotel room for a chat where he attempted to get the former American football player to say he killed ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ronald Goldman.
According to Deadline, the recently freed from prison star has no idea he’s being filmed in the stunt in which Cohen’s character uses a fake Sheikh Mansour to try to lure Simpson into saying what he wants to hear.
He claims that for a confession to the crime that the sportsman was cleared of in 1995, the made-up royal – who he claimed was having sex with a prostitute in a room nearby – would cough up seven figures.
Deadline also reports that one of Simpson’s lawyers accepted money to arrange the chat between the two.
In the Sunday night episode on Showtime, the eccentric character gained access into O.J. Simpson’s Las Vegas hotel room for a chat where he tried to get him to confess many times
Simpson laughed but urges the fake character to stop as he claimed the sports star killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her boyfriend Ronald Goldman
The character told Simpson a lot of money was in it if he said he killed them back in 1994
According to the publication, Cohen worked with an FBI interrogator on his skills to draw a confession and had to develop the characters so extensively that the duped lawyer would be able to research them to the point they seemed real.
The Showtime program involves numerous funny moments, for viewers at least, where Cohen poked fun at Simpson by suggesting he murdered the pair.
Using an actress to play his girlfriend, Christina, he uses a stabbing gesture to the neck as Simpson watches to help her figure out who he is.
When Cohen says, ‘She’s gorgeous, but sometimes I want to kill her, you know,’ Simpson laughs in between telling the joker to ‘stop’.
At one point he says: ‘What I hate about the press is you make a tiny little slip, and that’s all they remember you for. You’re not the OJ the touchdown. You’re not the OJ the movie star. You kill two silly people and suddenly, you’re OJ the murderer.’
The show rounded off the seven-episode series that has had many controversial moments
Cohen is said to have undergone extensive training from the FBI for this episode of the show
Sarah Palin complained that she and her daughter traveled across the country for Cohen
Cohen thanked Sarah Palin for the free show promotion after she complained on Facebook about being duped by the show
Another time, Cohen wrongly refers to Nicole Brown Simpson as being shot – perhaps a ploy learned in his FBI training – but Simpson doesn’t correct him on the detail but does remind him they were no longer together.
As Cohen seems to present him being a killer as fact, Simpson is forced to say, ‘Well, first of all, she wasn’t my wife. We had been divorced. And second of all, I didn’t do it. Hey, I didn’t get away with nothing.’
The interviewee – who is on parole until September 2022, served 10 years behind bars for his involvement in a staged robbery of a sports memorabilia dealer, which also took place in a Sin City hotel room.
Palin went on a rant about the comedian on social media, calling him ‘sick’
Although he was acquitted of the 1994 double murders, Simpson was found liable for their deaths in a 1997 civil trial that ordered him to pay the victims’ families $33.5million. They claim they never received the payouts.
Sunday’s episode isn’t the only shocking moment of his series.
Sarah Palin was interviewed but Cohen seemingly trolled her after she spoke about the occasion, but not including her segment.
However, he did thank her for the free publicity by posting about the show on Facebook.
She wrote two months ago: ‘Yup – we were duped. Ya’ got me, Sacha. Feel better now?
‘I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitative [sic], sick “humor” of the British “comedian” Sacha Baron Cohen, enabled and sponsored by CBS/Showtime.
‘This “legit opportunity” to honor American Vets and contribute to a “legit Showtime historical documentary” was requested of me via a speakers bureau.’
Complaining that she and her daughter traveled across the country for the opportunity, she egged Cohen to air the footage.
Cohen has also poked fun at his old interview with Donald Trump, as his character Ali G, in the time between the first episode airing and the seventh ending the season Sunday night.
Cohen has morphed into many different characters in the name of entertainment
Cohen convinced gun lobbyists to support a program getting three-year-old’s clued up on using weapons for self-defense in one episode of Who Is America?
The Who Is America? season ended Sunday after seven episodes on the Showtime network