A Turkish Internet sensation is hot on Sacha Baron Cohen’s trail, suggesting the actor unfairly used his likeness for his Borat character. Mahir Cagri, who experienced unexpected fame after he posted a personal website in 1999 that had images of him playing ping pong and sunbathing in a teeny suit, and propositioning foreign women with, “Who is want to come TURKEY I can invitate…She can stay my home.” Now Cagri wants to be paid by Cohen for allegedly modeling his Kazakh reporter character Borat after him. “The world knows he is copying Mahir,” Cagri told the AP. “I am not saying this — the world is. I have received so many e-mails from people in the United States who tell me he is imitating me.” Cagri is now traveling to London to meet with his manager and lawyer, do interviews with British papers, and seek an apology from Cohen. “The bombshell is going to fall,” Cagri said. “[Cohen] is making money by using me.” Cohen, meanwhile, has said Borat was influenced by a doctor he met in southern Russia.
Talk: Will Cagri have any success in his quest for Cohen’s acknowledgement and apology? COMMENT
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