Sacha Baron Cohen: Backlash to new Ali G part of trend to silence Jews

British Jewish actor Sacha Baron Cohen, whose “Ali G: Who Iz I?” debuts Friday, has suggested that calls to boycott the film about the wannabe Black rapper he plays were an example of how “Jews are being targeted.”

“We are in a world where people can’t distinguish between facts and lies, and that’s something that I’ve spent a lot of the last few years trying to fix,” Cohen told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published this week, citing his activism against racism on social media.

“So, I’m not surprised that prominent Jews are being targeted. I knew that this was going to happen. The level of organization is surprising, but this is a trend of Jews being portrayed in certain ways and trying to be silenced,” he said.

Cohen, who lived in Israel as a teenager and is fluent in Hebrew, also smacked down speculation brought up by his interviewer that calls to boycott the new Ali G film were linked to his  “pro-Israel stance.”

“I haven’t said anything about Israel,” interjected Cohen, who called for the release of Israeli hostages following the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, but has otherwise refrained from public statements about the Gaza war.

Asked if he “felt any difference” in his own career amid the global rise in antisemitism that followed the onslaught, Cohen said: “No, not really. I mean, maybe it’s because I don’t do much, but I haven’t.”

Check it me in cinemas for jus two days from tomorrow in an event me iz callin “Iz It Coz I Ain't Black Friday”, get dem tickets now pic.twitter.com/KQHSGatdWM

— Ali G (@OfficialAli_G) October 22, 2026

In a separate public appearance promoting the film, Cohen revealed that the production team of 2025 Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries “Ironheart” was trepidatious about casting him as the devil-like Mephisto because of antisemitic associations of Jews with Satan.

“They said, ‘We want to offer you Mephisto, but we are aware of the negative association of Jews historically with the devil, and we want to make sure that you’re not insulted by us offering this,’ Cohen said at a live taping of the Happy Sad Confused podcast in New York. “It was such an amazingly considerate, empathetic thing to say. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m good.’”

Cohen, 55, is reprising the Ali G role on screen for the first time in over 20 years in his latest film to poke fun at unsuspecting participants. The film, distributed by Amazon, also features Cohen in the role of ex-Mossad counterterrorism expert Col. Eran Morrad, whom Cohen introduced in his 2018 mockumentary series “Who Is America?”

Cohen’s victims this time around include El Paso County Republican leader Michael Aboud, who has vowed to sue after he was filmed firing bullets out of his behind and dropping what he thinks is a baby out of a helicopter in a Morrad-guided mission to prevent an immigrant birth on US soil.

Cohen has previously courted controversy in similar guerrilla comedy films featuring over-the-top caricatures such as antisemitic Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev and flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter Brüno Gerhard.

The Ali G character is known for wearing stereotypical urban streetwear, affecting a fake Jamaican patois and responding to perceived slights with the catchphrase, “Is it ‘cos I is Black?”

In a Time Magazine essay this week responding to boycott calls, Cohen described his character as “a white imbecile — a delusional cultural appropriator — who steals the fashion and lyrics from his favorite gangsta rap and dancehall idols, from Compton to Kingston.”

The character helped catapult Cohen to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but he has long faced accusations of appropriating Black culture. Such criticisms are a focus of the new film.

Ahead of the film’s release, media monitoring site NewsCord launched an email campaign to demand movie theater chains refuse to screen “Ali G: Who Iz I?” because of “discriminatory language” by the character, “a white comedian’s sustained caricature of Black British street culture.”

Critics online have also called for a boycott of the film, though it’s unclear whether such calls have found major success.

Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, slammed the boycott calls.

“No artist should be pressured, blacklisted or silenced over their Jewish identity. And Jewish artists shouldn’t be subjected to ideological litmus tests,” the ADL chief wrote on X on Thursday.

My friend @SachaBaronCohen has spent years confronting hate and disinformation, and @ADL is proud of all the work we've done together. In a world where lies spread faster than facts, that work matters more than ever.
 
No artist should be pressured, blacklisted or silenced over… https://t.co/eS9iO9QCQ9

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) October 22, 2026

The pro-Israel antisemitism watchdog is one of several groups Cohen worked with in 2020 to found Stop Hate for Profit, an organization dedicated to pressuring social media companies to de-platform racist content.

“In a world where lies spread faster than facts, that work matters more than ever,” Greenblatt wrote.

Cohen himself wrote in his Time piece: “As someone who has opposed bigotry and injustice throughout my life and partnered with civil rights groups, I don’t recognize myself in the warped portrayals of me that I sometimes see on social media, lumped in with the bigots I lampoon.”

“I’ve always designed my characters and comedy as vehicles to expose prejudice, bias, and stupidity, though I realize not everyone sees them that way,” Cohen wrote.