BORAT 2 is released today and it's already making headlines for a spectacularly disturbing stitch-up.

Stills released from the film appear to show Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, putting his hand down his trousers while alone in a hotel room with a young woman.

Giuliani was with Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, who played Borat's on-screen daughter, who conducted a bogus interview for a fake conservative news programme in the film.

But the ex-New York mayor, 73, has dismissed the clip as showing him merely tucking his shirt in, and he branded the scene "a complete fabrication".

"At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate," he tweeted.

"If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar."

But Giuliani is just the latest in a long line of people to be embarrassed by Baron Cohen's characters.

Testing Trump's patience

The new Borat film might be all about satirising Trump's America, but the Donald has already fallen foul of Baron Cohen himself.

In 2003, he agreed to an interview on Da Ali G Show – which Trump later tried to use as proof that he didn't fall for scams.

"I am the only person who immediately walked out of my ‘Ali G’ interview," Trump tweeted in 2012.

In the broadcast show, Trump answered a couple of nonsensical questions about how people used to sell rocks, and also listened to Ali G's business pitch for a kind of glove to wear while eating ice cream.

"He claims that he saw through the interview," Baron Cohen told James Corden in 2016.

"But actually he was there for about seven minutes."

Award show 'killing'

In 2013, Baron Cohen was awarded the Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy in LA.

An elderly wheelchair user named Grace Cullington, who was introduced as Chaplin's oldest living castmate, presented Baron Cohen with a walking stick she said Chaplin had used.

When Baron Cohen started impersonating Chaplin's walk with the stick, it snapped under his weight – and he violently shoved Cullington off the stage.

Of course, the whole thing was planned, and "Chaplin's castmate" was actually a stunt performer.

"Grace Cullington is the oldest, no, sorry, was the oldest surviving [Chaplin co-star]," Baron Cohen said in his speech.

"I dedicate my award to her. This is obviously a tragedy. She has upstaged me."

He added: “But on the bright side, what a great way to go: giving an award to me."

The real grim shady

That's not the only awards show stunt Baron Cohen has pulled.

At the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, a scantily clad Baron Cohen crash-landed from the ceiling in character as Brüno – right into the lap of a fuming Eminem.

The rapper and his entourage immediately stormed out of the ceremony, leaving some people wondering if Baron Cohen's entrance really had gone awry.

But Eminem later confirmed to RapRadar that he was in on the gag the whole time.

“I’m thrilled that we pulled this off better than we rehearsed it,” he said.

Bagging Baywatch beauty

One of the most shocking moments in the first Borat movie came when he tried to kidnap Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, with whom Borat is obsessed.

At the end of the 2006 film, Borat approaches Anderson at a book signing with a "traditional marriage sack" and tries to force her in it, seemingly against her will.

"We did that scene twice, actually," Baron Cohen told the Daily Beast.

"The first time we did it at a book signing and I grabbed her over my shoulder and ran out with her and no one did anything.

"I was like, 'What kind of fans are these?'"

Giving guns to toddlers

One of the most shocking stitch-ups came in Baron Cohen's 2018 series Who Is America?

In character as Erran Morad, a former Israeli Mossad agent and "anti-terror expert", Baron Cohen sought out supporters for a fictional plan to give guns to kids as young as three.

Pro-gun rights activist Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, even agreed to sing an instructional nursery rhyme for the "kinderguardians" programme.

"Aim at the head, shoulders, not the toes," Van Cleave sang, while wielding a puppy pistol.

Politician resigns in disgrace

Another appearance as Morad even led to the resignation of Georgia lawmaker Jason Spencer.

Thinking he's taking part in anti-terrorism training, Spencer practiced using a selfie stick to take upskirt photos of women in burkas.

And he also ran backwards with his bare buttocks exposed, yelling extreme racial slurs, and even imitated Asian tourists.

His appalling behaviour was widely condemned by his own party when the episode was broadcast, and though he initially refused, he ultimately resigned in July 2018.

MP smoking cannabis

In 2000, disgraced former MP Neil Hamilton appeared on an episode of Da Ali G Show.

In it, Baron Cohen handed Hamilton what he said was cannabis – which Hamilton accepted, and puffed throughout the interview.

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"He generously offered me a 'joint'," Hamilton said at the time.

"Of course I tried it. I'm always one for new experiences, as you know.

"I couldn't taste anything whatsoever so I presume, quite sadly, that it was a spoof."

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