10 Movie Cameos That Were Total Accidents

Love or hate his characters, you have to give props to Sacha Baron Cohen for his confidence to put himself in front of some seriously powerful people and make fun of them. Ali G, Borat and Brüno have all hosted fake interviews in order to make politicians and celebrities uncomfortable; the entire point being they didn’t know they were being taken for a ride.

Paula Abdul, singer and reality TV judge, was just one of the many celebs that Baron Cohen trolled.

In 2009, Abdul spoke in an interview with SIRIUS XM about the experience. Just a few weeks prior her agent told her that the tabloids had asked her how it felt being pranked by the comedian. She denied that such a thing happened and then, in her words, “woke up in a pool of sweat at 2am” when it all clicked.

In Brüno, Abdul meets with the phoney fashion journalist and is welcomed into an empty home where Cohen’s character has hired his construction men to work as chairs for the interview. In a stroke of ironic genius, Brüno asks Abdul how important her humanitarian work is to her whilst she is literally sitting on a person of colour on their hands and knees.

She had no idea that the interview she eventually walked out on was for a major motion picture, but thankfully found it rightfully “hysterical”.