Despite her outrage about being duped for Sacha Baron Cohenâs Who Is America?, in the end Sarah Palin didnât even make a cameo in this summerâs Showtime satire. While the former Alaskan governor described Cohenâs humor as âevil, exploitive, sick,â apparently he didnât think hers measured up to the likes of, say, Roy Moore or Georgia congressman Jason Spencer. In an interview with Deadline on Wednesday, Cohen confirmed that his sit-down with the former vice-presidential candidate was sadly not Who Is America?âworthy.
âThe upsetting answer is, I donât think you missed much,â he explained. âThere was a lot of pressure on me from the channel to put out Palin. And obviously, she did the only publicity for the show because I did zero interviews. There was no other publicity at all for the show. Thanks to her, people knew that the show was coming. But ultimately, I looked at the footage and it just wasnât funny enough.â
As you might recall, Palin was credited as Special Publicity Consultant (Inadvertent) in the showâs season finale, the role every former or current politician prays theyâll land in a SBC project. âFor the pieces to be good, there has to be a good comic dynamic,â Cohen continued. âShe was just delivering these kind of rote answers, as if she was doing a campaign speech. And even though I sat with her I think for about two-and-a-half hours, there was no comedy gold.â