Actor and comic Sacha Baron Cohen - famed for his disguises and stunts - added to his repertoire over the weekend in outrageous fashion.
He infiltrated a rally organised by a US far-right group the Washington State Three Percenters over the weekend and comprehensively tricked the crowd.
Cohen took to the stage at the event and performed in blue overalls, a hat, and a fake beard. He hired security at the event to ensure his set wasn’t interrupted by the organisers.
He began singing a song crammed with lyrics reflecting far-right conspiracies and talking points: from the coronavirus being a hoax, to it being created in a Wuhan lab, through to the infamous ‘lock her up’ chants directed at Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US presidential election.
The crowd sang back to Cohen repeating the lyrics to him. As the crowd got attuned to the lyrics, Cohen sang “W H O what we gonna do”, and asked the crowd whether they’d like to “inject them with the Wuhan flu” or “chop them up like the Saudis do” -- the crowd in unison chose the second option.
The chorus from the song included: “Obama what we gonna do, Inject him with the Wuhan flu. Hillary Clinton what we gonna do, lock her up like we used to do. W H O what we gonna do, Chop them up like the Saudis do.”
Cohen, according to organisers of the event, was a late sponsor of the rally and offered up to hire his own personal security.
In the aftermath of the event, one of the organisers spoke about Cohen’s involvement.
“So last minute, we had a man added by the production company who was sponsoring the event who we never worked with before. We didn't know anything about the band,” an organiser for the Washington State Three Percenters said.
“About halfway through that set there were pretty racist and divisive lyrics. And we tried to find the production manager immediately. The production managers both already left.”
It later turned out the interview was being filmed by Cohen himself in another disguise.
Cohen’s prank was praised online, especially as the crowd sang back what the organisers admitted were “racist and divisive” lyrics.
The set is thought to be included in Cohen’s next season of his Showtime series, ‘Who Is America?’.
And if you can’t get enough of this, Cohen’s performance in full has been added to YouTube by some of his eager fans.
