His provocative antics while filming Brüno caused a riot in Arkansas's second-largest city, but Sacha Baron Cohen is to prove his pacificist credentials: the comic has enlisted celebrity friends Bono and Chris Martin to record the spoof charity single Dove of Peace to promote his new film.
Featuring the lyrics: "For people of Africa who live in hell/They will never wear Chanel", the song looks to be a direct spoof of the Band Aid single Do They Know It's Christmas and its charity successors. According to the Mirror, Sting, Elton John and The Village People are also due to contribute, while Baron Cohen has also asked Madonna, who worked with the comic on the video for her single Music, to get involved.
The notoriously worthy U2 and Coldplay frontmen seem to have taken the joke in good faith. A source tells the newspaper, "Chris Martin was in stitches throughout the recording and only just managed to get his lines out."
Brüno, which arrives in cinemas in July, is Baron Cohen's follow-up to hit 2006 comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It is currently being re-edited for the US market to tone down a number of sexually explicit scenes after the Motion Picture Association of America handed an initial cut the dreaded NC-17 rating, which would preclude anyone aged 17 and under from seeing it in a cinema.
Brüno, the fashionista presenter for mythical Austrian gay TV channel Österreichischer Jungen Rundfunk (Austrian Boys Broadcast), has not always been known for his placatory efforts. During the filming of Brüno, residents of Fort Smith, Arkansas, were lured to an event billed as cage fighting, featuring "hot girls", $1 beer (£0.69) and $5 admission.
More than 1,500 people turned up, to be greeted by the sight of Baron Cohen and another male actor kissing and fondling each other inside a wrestling ring. The local police had to be called in after the audience began throwing chairs and beer at the performers.
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