Picture Group/MTVBrüno isn't even released yet, and it's already outperforming Borat.
After all, the first of the myriad lawsuits weren't filed against Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakh reporter until after the mockumentary came out.
This time around, the first litigant doesn't need to see herself on film to go after the guerrilla funnyman and the deep-pocketed Brüno backers at NBC Universal. A woman is claiming she's been confined to a wheelchair after being accosted by Cohen's flamboyant Austrian fashion guru following a dustup at a full-contact 2007 bingo game.
Per court documents obtained by E! News, plaintiff Richelle Olson claims she was told a "celebrity" would show up to call numbers at her charity bingo game in Palmdale, Calif.
Enter Brüno—or as Olson prefers to call him, an "extreme, outrageous, offensive caricature of a gay man dressed in sexually revealing clothing with an Austrian accent"—and things started to go to hell from there...
Brüno, she says, began spewing "vulgar and offensive language" in front of the bingo gang. As she attempted to snatch the microphone away from him, she says "a physical struggle ensued" and Cohen/Brüno "offensively touched, pushed and battered" her.
Three cameramen and two soundmen from Cohen's crew came to his aid, she claims, and "attacked [her] for a period of one to five minutes to intentionally create a dramatic response...while [they] recorded her humiliation and embarrassment."
At that point, Olson retreated to another room "sobbing uncontrollably." She claims the "shock to her nervous system" made her collapse "onto the thinly covered concrete slab, passing out and causing her to hit her head." She was then hospitalized for "two brain bleeds" and now requires a walker and wheelchair to get around.
Olson, executive director of California's Desert Valley Charities, is seeking unspecified damages for her pain and suffering and loss of income. Reps for Cohen and NBC Universal were unavailable for comment.
Cohen has no problem wreaking havoc in the name of comedy. He appeared in character as Brüno at last Sunday's MTV Movie Awards and flew over the audience dressed as an angel before being lowered butt first into Eminem's face, causing the latter to storm out in mock indignation.
Brüno is due out July 10.
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