Sacha Baron Cohen Apologizes to Kazakhstan After Reviving Borat

Twenty years after Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen has apologized to the people of Kazakhstan. The apology became public just weeks after he used the character to promote another film. On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, released October 26, he said, “I want to apologize to the people of Kazakhstan for the first time ever.” He acknowledged that Kazakhstan’s original objections were justified and that Borat’s appearance and accent bore no resemblance to its people. He explained that earlier versions of the character had been Albanian or Moldovan. Kazakhstan was eventually chosen because audiences knew so little about it. His real target, he maintained, was the ignorance of his interviewees. That ignorance was hardly confined to the people appearing in his films. As Borat opened in November 2006, Slate journalist Ilan Greenberg described foreign reporters descending on Kazakhstan in search of real-life versions of the character. One British tabloid journalist wanted a photograph of a donkey alongside a farmer with a large mustache. Some reporters seemed more interested in finding Borat than discovering Kazakhstan. When the Borat sequel arrived in 2020, Kazakhstan’s tourism board turned the character’s “Very nice!” catchphrase into an advertising campaign encouraging visitors to discover the real country. On October 9, Baron Cohen appeared as Borat in a promotional trailer for Ali G: Who Iz I?. The trailer revived the very portrayal of Kazakhstan for which he has now apologized.