Provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen has targeted someone whom everyone despises with equal measure: the notorious O.J. Simpson.
In the final episode of his comedy series “Who Is America?” on Showtime, Cohen interviewed O.J. while trying to coax a confession out of him for the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, of which he was acquitted in 1995.
Using hidden cameras, the segment features Simpson in an interview with Cohen in disguise as an Italian billionaire and fashion photographer named “Gio Monaldo.” The Guardian reports of the segment:
Claiming to be working as a middleman for a fictional sheikh, Baron Cohen’s character says that his client would be willing to pay a seven-figure sum to Simpson if he confesses to the 1994 murder of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her partner, Ronald Goldman. Monaldo fails to elicit a confession from Simpson, who says that he “didn’t get away with nothing.”
Cohen later jokes with “The Juice” about murdering Monaldo’s fictional girlfriend by throwing her out of a helicopter with a sabotaged bungee chord.
“Me and you, we got something in common. We both, how you say, ‘ladykillers,'” Cohen tells O.J. at one point, prompting Simpson to laugh while saying, “No, I didn’t kill nobody.”
The former NFL star’s appearance in the show was rumored as early as February of this year, with reports saying that Cohen paid O.J. a sum total of $20,000, prompting fierce outrage from the Goldman and Brown families.
“Nicole and Ron are two human beings who were brutally murdered,” Nicole Brown’s sister Tanya said at the time. “This is not a joke nor is it entertainment. If Sacha makes this a comedic effort his victims will be personified as a joke. Shame on him.”
Though a jury acquitted Simpson in the infamous criminal trial, the football-player-turned-actor was found liable for their deaths in the 1997 civil case. To this day, he still owes the Goldman and Brown family $70 million.
In 2007, Simpson was found guilty of armed robbery and kidnapping. Simpson was sentenced to 30 years in prison with the possibility of parole in nine years. For some reason, the Nevada parole board felt that a man with a history of domestic abuse and who was liable for the deaths of two innocent people was worthy of parole based on good behavior.
The finale episode for “Who Is America?” did not exactly go off without a hitch; the much-anticipated Sarah Palin interview in which Cohen posed as a wounded veteran to get her attention was shelved following severe backlash.