So, here’s what happened: Sacha Baron Cohen “fell” on Eminem in what was basically the 69 position. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Sacha Baron Cohen wasn’t wearing big, fluffy angel wings, a jock strap, no pants and bearing down on the stage from a wire, through the air. Sacha was acting as his latest alter-ego, Bruno, complete with a fake Austrian-ish accent. The way the wire stopped short, the way “Bruno” stayed in character, it makes me believe that Sacha knew what he was doing. Here’s the thing – I don’t think Eminem knew what Bruno was doing, and that’s what made what happened outrageous.

All I know is that for what felt like an eternity, Sacha Baron Cohen’s bare ass was in Eminem’s face (with Eminem saying over and over “You can‘t be serious“), and Eminem’s bodyguards freaked out and started beating the crap out of Sacha, who was still dangling from the wire. After that, it seemed like Eminem and his bodyguards walked out of the show. This was confirmed by Ryan Seacrest in real time, via Twitter, where Ryan tweeted, “If u saw the fight at mtv movie awards betwen eminem and “bruno” I am told it was real and em’s crew left the show”

The LA Times has some good analysis about whether the incident was faked:

It probably wasn’t the comeback Eminem wanted. His appearance at the MTV Movie Awards this year will be a hard one to top. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with his music.

Two hours of live product placement, the MTV Movie Awards don’t come back with much in the way of live music. There were two performances tonight – Eminmen and Kings of Leon. For Eminem, this represented his first major appearance since the release of his No. 1 album, “Relapse.”

He brought an award-show staple – a medley of recent singles “We Made You” and “Crack a Bottle.” But Eminem’s best performance came a few minutes later in the stands, when Sacha Baron Cohen’s flamboyantly gay character Bruno descended from the rafters in angel wings and landed, butt-first, in Eminem’s face.

Punches were thrown, curse words were lip-read and Eminem stormed out with a scowl. Credit MTV for having a little fun with the often humorless rapper, who’s long been a source of controversy for what many have deemed homophobic lyrics. In fact, the episode gave MTV what many of its recent award galas have lacked – a moment that felt a little daring.

Was it staged? Eminem is a master pitchmen, and he’s used his homophobic tag to move records before (see the Grammys’ 2001 performance with Elton John). But if it was planned, Emimen should have stuck around and had more fun with the moment. After all, storming out was the obvious move, and what we’d expect from Em (as is much of “Relapse”).

But if it wasn’t staged, score one for Cohen, who showed that the rapper, who hadn’t released an album of new material since 2004’s “Encore,” hasn’t grown up in the slightest.

[From The LA Times]

I’m siding with Seacrest. I don’t think this stuff was staged, at least not from Eminem’s perspective. There’s no way that MTV could have gotten “Bruno” to land so perfectly into Eminem’s lap if the crew hadn’t practiced that drop before. And yet, Eminem looked truly freaked out that Sacha’s ass was in his face, and those bodyguards looked like they were really trying to beat the crap out of Sacha. As cameras caught Eminem walking out of the auditorium, he looked visibly pissed off and outraged. Of course, it probably didn’t help that MTV pushed a bunch of cameras into Eminem’s face. So I think “Bruno” planned this stunt, with some help from MTV, but Eminem was caught off-guard. Too funny.

Update Thanks to commenter Are you F* for letting us know that those are members of Eminem’s band, D12, sitting next to him and are not his bodyguards.