The lawsuits have started coming in for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie as Bruno. For his first movie, Borat, he was sued by some frat brothers who felt they had been wrongly represented when Baron Cohen convinced them to drunkenly admit that slavery was a good idea. This time, Sacha’s representatives convinced the people running a bingo hall that Bruno was a celebrity, and would call out numbers at a charity bingo game for the elderly. Instead, the “celebrity” that showed up was an “extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man.” When the woman who was running the game, Richelle Olson, tried to take the microphone away from him, she was emotionally and physically harassed by him and his handlers, and ended up passing out from cyring and hitting her head on a concrete slab. She is suing for head injuries as well as loss of marital relations with her husband.

Richelle Olson has sued Cohen, NBC Universal and others claiming they told her Bruno was a celeb and would appear and call numbers at the charity bingo game she ran for the elderly in Palmdale, CA. Olson was none too happy when she saw Bruno, whom she describes as an “extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent…”

Olson alleges Bruno used “vulgar and offensive language” and when she tried taking the mic from him, a “physical struggle ensued” and Cohen “offensively touched, pushed and battered” her, causing her to fall to the ground.

She then claims three cameramen and others rushed the stage … “where defendants attacked [her] for a period of one to five minutes to intentionally create a dramatic emotional response … while [they] recorded her humiliation and embarrassment.”

After the alleged assault was over, the suit says Olson went into another room where she was “sobbing uncontrollably” … then was rendered unconscious … “falling forward onto the thinly covered concrete slab, passing out and causing her to hit her head.”

The suit says Olson was rushed to the hospital with a “diagnosis of two brain bleeds” — and that she has been confined to a wheelchair and walker ever since.

[from TMZ]

It’s all fun and games until someone hits their head. A lot of the situations in Sacha’s movies are pretty funny, but pushing the envelope always has the risk of someone getting hurt. In the case of the drunken frat brothers, part of it is their fault – they accepted free booze from the crew and made asses of themselves. But this woman didn’t do anything wrong and ended up getting hurt in the process. The case will probably be settled out of court, but you wonder how many more lawsuits the franchise can handle before the studio decides it’s not worth it.

Here’s Sacha Baron Cohen as Bruno at the VMAs on Sunday. Images thanks to WENN.com .

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