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Sacha Baron Cohen caught a break recently when Judge Terry Friedman of Los Angeles County Superior Court dismissed a libel lawsuit brought against him, HBO and the British broadcaster Channel 4 by a woman who claimed that the comic/chameleon uttered her name in a comedy routine.
The legal victory came only a few months prior to the release of Mr. Cohen’s latest (and much anticipated) film, “Bruno,” in which he plays a gay reporter from an Austrian TV station. In “Borat” docu-fashion, Bruno upsets the applecart repeatedly by interviewing real, unsuspecting guests about a slew of off-beat topics.
In the lawsuit, the woman cited a skit from Mr. Cohen’s “Da Ali G Show” in which he conducted an interview with the Gore Vidal. Ali G asked the American author why the U.S. Constitution should be amended since Ali G had a girlfriend—using the plaintiff’s name—who was always “amending herself.”
“No reasonable person could consider the statements made by Ali G on the program to be factual,” wrote Judge Friedman. “To the contrary, it is obvious that the Ali G character is absurd, and all his statements are gibberish and intended as comedy.”