Church-Going Granny Duped Into ‘Borat’ Role Raises Over $55K
‘Moral Compass’
Oklahoma City’s Jeanise Jones has raised $55,000 and counting from a GoFundMe page set up by her pastor after she became one of the unlikely stars of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which started streaming on Amazon Prime Video this past weekend. “Please consider saying thank you to Jeanise with a tangible gift,” Pastor Derrick Scobey wrote. “She’s unemployed right now due to Covid. Previously, she worked on a job for 32 years! She’s faithful! Please consider giving a contribution to simply to say thank you to Jeanise for ‘A moral compass and a light shining in darkness’ in this movie.”
Jones, who was paid just $3,600 to appear as a “babysitter” for Borat’s daughter Tutar in what she thought was a documentary, told The Oklahoman that she “thought it was serious” and was “blown away” to find out that it was not. She stands out among the morally dubious figures in the film by trying to convince Tutar to follow her heart instead of doing whatever he father tells her. She suffers one final indignity late in the movie when Borat returns to her house and asks her to be his “new Black wife.”
“This was not scripted for Jeanise,” Scobey added. “It all came from the heart. She is one of the most authentic people I’ve ever met. One good thing that has come from this is that Jeanise doesn’t have to worry about ‘Tutar’ anymore. She has WORRIED about this young lady for a year.”