Baron Cohen's Dictator Barred From Oscars

Sacha Baron Cohen has been told he's not welcome at this Sunday's Academy Awards unless he promises he won't arrive dressed up as a Middle Eastern military dictator. Oscar tickets are in jeopardy for the creator of Borat and Bruno because of fears that he will arrive on the red carpet in character as the "sex-crazed Gadhafi-meets-Hussein" title character of his latest spoof, The Dictator, reports the New York Daily News.

Baron Cohen had been invited as one of the stars of Best Picture contender Hugo, "but our red carpet is not for stunting," an Academy official tells Reuters. With most of this year's Oscar winners looking like a foregone conclusion, "the prospect of Baron Cohen’s red carpet walk was the closest thing to drama" viewers could expect this year, notes Nikki Finke at Deadline. Maybe the Academy feared a repeat of the funnyman's 2009 MTV Awards stunt, when Bruno descended from the ceiling in angel wings and landed butt-first on Eminem. (More The Dictator stories.)