‘Bachelor’ Alum Corinne Olympios Reveals How She Got Duped On Sacha Baron Cohen’s New Prank Show

Corinne Olympios has something in common with Sarah Palin. The Bachelor alum and the former Alaska governor were both duped by Sacha Baron Cohen’s new prank show, Who is America? Olympios, who appeared on Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor and caused a temporary shutdown of last summer’s Bachelor in Paradise, has revealed that she is the latest person to get tricked by a heavily disguised Sacha Baron Cohen.

Olympios told the Daily Beast that she was lured to the taping under the guise that she was being honored with a coveted “reality star of the year” award. The Bachelor star soon became concerned after she was asked to do some things that made her uncomfortable, including a segment in support of children with guns and another in which she was forced to wear a hazmat suit accessorized with a Chanel bag and Fendi sunglasses.

“He played this crazy Italian man,” Olympios said of a disguised Sacha Baron Cohen. “He was screaming in a cheesy Italian accent the whole time, I was like, what’s this dude’s problem?”

Olympios revealed that she began to get so upset that she tried to leave the shoot, but was stopped by production. That’s when she fell into full-on panic attack mode.

“I’m like, are you guys kidnapping me? I don’t get it. It was like, you’re holding me here against my will, what the f**k is going on?” Olympios said. “I was like grabbing every cameraman, like, am I going to die? Am I okay?”

Olympios realized she has been duped by Cohen and his crew when she heard the Showtime announcement for his new prank series, Who Is America?

The crazy lengths Sacha Baron Cohen took to dupe The Bachelor’s Corinne Olympios https://t.co/wADCf97A3X

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) July 21, 2018

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Corinne Olympios revealed how she was lured to the bogus video shoot last fall.

“I was told that I was going to be getting an award from this TV company in the U.K. that does an awards show called Hot 100, and one of the categories was Reality Star of the Year and I was going to get the award. They were going to come to LA to film people that couldn’t go to the U.K., and I was like, ‘Great, cool.'”

Olympios went on to explain that she went to “film in a warehouse somewhere in L.A.” with her manager, Mark, by her side. Corinne’s manager soon left to go sign some papers related to her appearance.

Olympios revealed she was then approached by Sacha Baron Cohen’s “character,” describing him as “this really big, giant tall guy with blonde hair and covered with tattoos” who screamed “Bella! Bella” with a “really tacky Italian accent.”

After he asked her to pose for inappropriate pictures (Olympios declined) a made-up Cohen randomly started talking about “ugly, fat Italian women in Italy.” Olympios was then instructed to announce on camera that she lived in Africa for three months and “cured Ebola.”

Corinne Olympios revealed she finally “flipped out” when no one would give her her phone or find her manager. When she was finally released from the shoot, even her manager admitted the whole thing sounded like a prank, but it was months before they would know for sure.

“When we found out [Cohen’s] show was coming out, we were like, “s**t, that’s got to be it.” We didn’t know for sure until we saw that this show was coming out,” The Bachelor star revealed.

Surprisingly, Corinne Olympios isn’t angry about the embarrassing prank. The reality star said she is “honored” to be part of the comic’s project — which is a far cry from Palin’s reaction to being pranked by Cohen.

Who is America? airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m. ET on Showtime.