Sacha Baron Cohen is ripped, new photos from Men’s Fitness UK revealed Wednesday, just a week after ex-wife Isla Fisher’s dig about men with “little sausages.”
Baron Cohen revealed his newly muscled bod to the magazine as he transforms himself to play Marvel supervillain Mephisto. The Borat actor quipped on Instagram that he was “hard-launching my mid-life crisis” with the magazine spread.
“From Borat to Buff in 25 Minutes a Day,” the tagline on the cover reads, a bit incredulously given the extend of his physical transformation.
The new physique comes a little over a year after he and Fisher announced they had filed for divorce the year prior, and it is now finalized. “We are proud of all we’ve achieved together and, continuing our great respect for each other, we remain friends and committed to co-parenting our wonderful children,” they wrote in a joint statement at the time, where they declared their commitment to “co-parenting” their three children.
Neither actor has said anything else about the split, but Fisher re-posted a meme last Wednesday that seemed to comment on the marriage. The Instagram Stories post read, “For all those men who say ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ Here’s an update for you, Nowadays, 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig, just to get a little sausage.”
Baron Cohen had no retort at the time, but has since beefed up in other ways. “Some celebs use Ozempic, some use private chefs, others use personal trainers,” he wrote on social media Wednesday. “I did all three.”
The transformation is more than just prep for his Marvel role, apparently. Baron Cohen also made another “identity” joke on Instagram about the body-reveal photos when he wrote that he was “debuting my new character: middle-aged man who replaced beer with protein shakes.” Deadline reports that the Mephisto costume had to be altered to accommodate his new “mid-life crisis” bod, suggesting he’d taken his workouts even further than the role required.
Baron Cohen joked to Men’s Fitness UK, “I now believe that just 20 to 30 minutes of movement a day can make a real difference—and it’s something that anyone can fit into their routine, especially celebrities with personal assistants to do all the boring stuff like shopping and attending friends’ funerals.”
Acknowledging that it might be jarring for some fans to see the previously lanky comedian’s ripped transformation on the cover of a men’s magazine, he wrote to Instagram, “This is not AI. I really am egotistical enough to do this.”
