A Kazakh Pop Star Tried to Confront Sacha Baron Cohen After ‘Borat’ ‘Desecrated’ His Country

Kazakh pop-star Dimash Qudaibergen didn’t think Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of his home country was “very nice.”

During a recent appearance on the Kazakh-language podcast, Business Under the Hood, the 31-year-old singer recalled his disdain for Borat, revealing that he once tried to directly confront Cohen about how the film “desecrated an entire people, an entire nation.” 

“There was a time when I wanted to talk to him,” Qudaibergen remembered, per the podcast’s English subtitles. “I reached out to all my contacts abroad, I contacted everyone I knew in the film industry. I even asked my manager to help me find him. I wanted to talk to him man-to-man.”

This man-to-man talk, however, never came to fruition. Cohen reportedly never replied to Qudaibergen’s message asking to chat. But even without a conversation, Qudaibergen has slightly changed his tune on Cohen, claiming that the Borat star “does not deserve our attention.” 

“From a moral point of view, he is undoubtedly a very unworthy person,” Qudaibergen explained. “He mocked and joked about our entire nation.” 

Qudaibergen wasn’t alone in being angered by Cohen’s portrayal of Kazakhstan. Upon Borat’s mid-aughts release, the Kazakh government took several measures to denounce the film, banning it throughout the country and even threatening to sue Cohen. This outrage, however, ultimately turned into a business opportunity, with Kazakhstan adopting Borat’s signature line of “Very Nice!” as its tourism slogan alongside the release of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm in 2020. 

Who knows? Maybe Qudaibergen will end up making (very) nice with Cohen, too.