Lawsuit over Bruno gag

Sacha Baron Cohen is being sued by a woman who claims to have been left crippled when a Bruno stunt wet wrong.

The comic is no stranger to lawsuits over hurt feelings, but Richelle Olson alleges she was left in a wheelchair after Cohen turned up as a celebrity bingo caller two years ago.

She said she was unhappy when Bruno showed up for the event, held for the elderly in Palmdale, California, describing him as ‘an extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent’ who used ‘vulgar and offensive language’.

According to website TMZ.com, Olson is claiming that when she tried taking the mic from Bruno ‘a physical struggle ensued’ and Cohen ‘offensively touched, pushed and battered’ her, causing her to fall to the ground.

She says that after the incident, she went into another room where she began ‘sobbing uncontrollably’, then fainted onto a concrete slab. She says she was taken to hospital where they diagnosed ‘two brain bleeds’ and that she has been confined to a wheelchair and walker ever since.

Olson and her husband are suing for unspecified damages, including loss of marital relations from Cohen, NBC Universal and others.

Meanwhile, the internet has been rife with speculation that Eminem was in on Bruno’s stunt at the MTV awards at the week, where the character landed with his bare buttock inches from the rapper’s face.

Baron Cohen's representatives typically do not comment on lawsuits.

Published: 3 Jun 2009