Gretchen Rossi and Slade Smiley haven’t seen their “Who Is America?” debut yet, but they’re honored to be a part of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest project.
“I’m so honored that Sacha Cohen thought to prank me and Slade!” Rossi told Page Six on Monday. “To even be on his radar in any aspect, I feel honored that he even wants to be hanging out with us.”
The former “Real Housewives of Orange County”stars appeared on Sunday night’s episode of the show, and while they don’t subscribe to Showtime, they would love to see all of their footage from the four-and-a-half hours they spent with Cohen. They told us that the filming lasted so long because they respected Cohen’s character, Israeli anti-terrorism expert Erran Morad, and they didn’t want to offend him while he was “teaching” them how to protect themselves and explaining his culture.
“The production company called us beforehand to tell us about the show and what to expect. And what they said to us was, ‘Look, this is a Mousad agent from Israel … he’s a huge Trump supporter and he’s this and he’s that and we just want to make sure you’re not going to be offended by anything he’s saying or doing,’” Rossi explained.
She gave them the OK, but they weren’t prepared for the stunts he asked them to do, such as having Smiley pretend to be a “big black man” breaking into their home. The couple said they did not want to partake in anything that could offend someone — especially their friends. Cohen also pulled out guns and zip ties for another segment with Smiley.
Smiley said he wanted to call the authorities at one point during filming, and Rossi told us that after they wrapped she was worried that they had been duped by a real terrorist group.
As for the business card that Cohen, 46, gave Rossi, 39, at the end of their segment? Smiley, 44, threw it out of their car window when they realized there could be a layer of GPS-tracking film on it.
Page Six reported that the couple was duped back in February by Cohen. They figured out about the prank after chatting with Tito Ortiz, who was also filmed for a potential segment. “Tito only lasted an hour and a half,” Smiley told us on Monday. “So you can imagine how gullible we were because we lasted four hours!”
So far Cohen has duped Senator Bernie Sanders and “The Bachelor” star Corrine Olympios, among others.
As for those who may not appear? His interview with Sarah Palin could be axed, and he tried to get Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag but they shot down the opportunity to film.
“I think that he’s busting these political figures and these well-known individuals and he’s exposing almost the lies that they’ve been telling,” Smiley told us. “He had us for four hours because he never got us. He never got us to break or to do anything that was controversial because that’s not who we are.”
This article originally appeared in Page Six.