...by trolling Donald Trump

Sacha Baron Cohen has teased his latest project, suggesting it will inflame his feud with Donald Trump.

The Borat and Bruno star posted a video of the President, purporting to be a July 4 message, saying that the comedian deserves to be severely beaten.

In the 37-second clip, Trump says: ‘This third-rate character called Sacha Baron Cohen I only wish that he would’ve been punched in the face so many times right now he’d be in the hospital.’

He adds: ‘Sacha Baron Cohen, go to school! Learn about being funny. You don’t know shit.

Then a caption reads: ‘He’s back. As you’ve never seen him before. Sacha graduates. Soon’ – followed by the Trump University logo. 

A message from your President @realDonaldTrump on Independence Day pic.twitter.com/O2PwZqO0cs

— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) July 4, 2018

It has previously been reported that Baron Cohen is making a film called Greed, about the lavish lifestyles of the super rich. Directed by The Trip’s Michael Winterbottom, the movie is about a cut-throat retail billionaire said to be based on disgraced BhS tycoon Philip Green.

Although edited, the Trump footage is not fake. Trump made those comments against Baron Cohen in 2012, after the comic tipped an urn supposedly containing the ashes of Kim Jong Il over Ryan Seacrest at the Oscars, for a publicity stunt to promote his film The Dictator.

Baron Cohen first upset Trump in 2003, when he interviewed The Apprentice frontman in character as Ali G, pitching him an idea about a glove to eat ice-cream.

Trump once boasted: ‘I never fall for scams. I am the only person who immediately walked out of my Ali G interview.’

But Baron Cohen countered: ‘Actually he was there for about seven minutes’ and added: ‘I was the first person to realise he was a dick.’

In his last film, The Brothers Grimsby, Baron Cohen gave the President HIV, leading to a disclaimer in the closing credits that Trump  ‘is not HIV positive’ in actuality.

Baron Cohen is currently shooting the Netflix series The Spy, where he plays real-life agent Eli Cohen, a spy for Israel in Syria in the early 1960s. 

He is also set to star in a movie based on newspaper comic strip Mandrake the Magician. 

In February it was reported that Baron Cohen paid convicted armed robber OJ Simpson £15,000 to lure him to a hotel room a prank for an undisclosed new project,not believed to be the Greed movie.

Published: 5 Jul 2018