Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy series 'Who Is America?' was pretty out there in terms of its ideas and content.
You had former Vice President Dick Cheney signing a waterboarding jug, there were crazy Republicans trying to arm schoolchildren and teach them about guns, and you had lawsuits totalling well over $100 million.
In short, it was insanity. But one interview didn't make it into the final product, and there's a pretty good reason for it. It involved one of his characters - the 'fixer' Gio Monaldo - trying to creep out a Las Vegas concierge by coming up with an elaborate story involving an eight-year old boy.
Yeah, like we said. Grim. Here's what Cohen had to say about it. "We were shooting some of this at the time of Harvey Weinstein. We wanted to investigate how does someone like Harvey Weinstein gets away with doing what… get away with criminality, essentially. And the network that surrounds him."
"We decided that Gio would interview a concierge in Las Vegas. During the interview, I revealed that basically Gio has molested an eight-year-old boy. Now, mind you, this is extreme comedy and we thought that the guy would leave the room. Instead, this concierge stays in the room and I go, listen, you’ve got to help me get rid of the problem. And this guy starts advising Gio how to get rid of this issue. We even at one point talk about murdering the boy, and the concierge is just saying, 'Well, listen, I’m really sorry. In this country, we can’t just drown the boy. This is America, we don’t do that.' And then, in the end, he puts me in touch with a lawyer who can silence the boy."
"I became really dark stuff. And then at the end of the interview I say, listen, I want to go out and celebrate now. Can you get me a date for tonight? He says, 'What do you mean, a date?' I go, you know, like a young man. He says, “Well, what kind of age?” I say, lower than Bar Mitzvah but older than eight. And he says, 'Yeah, I can put you in touch with somebody who can get you some boys like that.'"
As you can imagine, Cohen immediately pulled the interview tapes and handed to the FBI for investigation, adding that the scene was too much to put into a comedy series - even for him.
You can read the full interview on Deadline here.