Who is America?: O.J. Simpson knew it was Sacha Baron Cohen, says lawyer

Malcolm P. LaVergne said that Simpson is a fan of Cohen - and has been for some time

Over the past eight weeks, Sacha Baron Cohen has fooled a string of prominent politicians and figures on Showtime's Who is America?. However, it's claimed his final interviewee – OJ Simpson – saw through the comedian’s disguise.

Malcolm P. LaVergne told ABC News that Simpson is a fan of the Borat funnyman and has been for some time, realising at some point during the interview that it was “Sacha Baron Cohen doing his thing.”

The segment saw Baron Cohen attempt to elicit a murder confession from Simpson, under the guise of the pony-tailed Italian billionaire playboy and fashion photographer Gio Monaldo.

There were a few giveaways for Simpson, according to LaVergne: the legal pad he took out during the conversation – an item a billionaire would never use – and the fact Cohen is 6’3”.

Over the course of the interview, Baron Cohen’s character claimed he worked for a sheikh who would pay a seven-figure sum to Simpson if he confessed to the 1994 murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her partner, Ronald Goldman. Simpson was charged and later acquitted of the crimes.

LaVergne added that Simpson wanted to be a good sport and “enjoy his time with the comedian”, but that he believes the material filmed over the course of their meeting, which lasted several hours, was funnier than what aired.

He added that the comedian “could have done a lot better” by not focusing on the deaths of two individuals, which he did not find funny “on any level”, stressing that it was Baron Cohen’s choice to edit the segment in the way that he did.

Baron Cohen's character also joked with Simpson about murdering Monaldo's girlfriend by pushing her out of a helicopter or sabotaging a bungee jump. At one point, he told Simpson: “Me and you, we got something in common. We both, how you say, ‘ladykillers'." To which Simpson replied, while laughing: “No, I didn’t kill nobody."

Though the interview with Simpson may have closed the show, fans were disappointed to see Sarah Palin’s appearance excised from the finale. The former vice-presidential candidate confirmed she’d been a target of Baron Cohen’s on Facebook, writing: “I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitative, sick ‘humor’ of the British ‘comedian’ Sacha Baron Cohen.”

Palin was instead featured in the credits as a “Special Publicity Consultant (Inadvertent)”.

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