Sacha Baron Cohen is known to do some crazy things as any one of his alter egos. Fooling politicians. Pamela Anderson. Unsuspecting Midwestern folk. Making Paula Abdul sit on gardeners. Etcetera. So it’s almost nice to know that once in a while, Sacha is the butt of his own jokes – in this case, literally. Though it wasn’t something he’d planned, Cohen ended up in the hospital as a result of bleaching all his body hair. He ended up with a pretty bad anal reaction.

OUTRAGEOUS comic SACHA BARON COHEN couldn’t sit down for THREE DAYS after a bid to bleach ALL his body hair went badly wrong. The star came out in a burning rash after suffering a nasty allergic reaction to chemicals used in the process — and needed emergency treatment.

He went through with the drastic cosmetic procedure while making his latest film Bruno, in which he plays a gay Austrian fashion reporter. A source revealed: “Sacha is committed to as much realism as he can muster in his films. He’d heard that all-over hairlessness is a popular trend in the gay community, so he thought he’d bleach all his hair so it looked invisible.

“But it quickly turned into a disaster. Shortly after having the procedure done he felt a burning sensation and it grew steadily worse. He had a bad allergic reaction to hydrogen peroxide, which is a strong bleaching agent. It was so severe around a certain part of his anatomy that he couldn’t sit down for three days. He had to make an emergency appointment with the doctors, who gave him some medication to counter the irritation.

“Crew members found the whole incident hilarious and it slowed down filming for a bit, but Sacha soon got over the discomfort. He has suffered no long-lasting ill effects.”

[From The Sun]

TMZ wrote the article that’s gotten the most attention about the incident, and they titled it, “Sacha Baron — Anal Bleaching Was Pain in the Ass.” Which made it sound like Cohen was doing anal bleaching, which is a whole other ball of wax. They quote the Sun but neglect to mention that he was bleaching all of his body hair, not just the hair around his anus. Anal bleaching is something entirely different. I’m not going to explain it – I’ll let you check out this Wikipedia link if you’ve got some burning desire. Yes I did that on purpose.

I realize I’m supposed to register concern or at least empathy, but really all I feel is a sense of justice. I’m sure it was painful as hell, but I’m a little glad that Sacha doesn’t just dole out the jokes, but actually has to take a few himself. Normally I consider him to be a bit of a pain in the ass, but now… well actually I guess that still applies.