SACHA BARON COHEN - SCHOOL IN TROUBLE FOR BRUNO PHOTOSPREAD

SCHOOL IN TROUBLE FOR BRUNO PHOTOSPREAD

Funnyman SACHA BARON COHEN has landed teachers at a California high school in big trouble after a sexy photoshoot with teenage football players appeared in the new issue of men's magazine GQ.
Cohen - posing as his outrageous Austrian fashion journalist character Bruno - persuaded officials at Birmingham High in Van Nuys to let him stage snaps with young sports stars, and now the photos could cost the school a valuable conversion to a charter institution.
In one photo, which has upset Los Angeles Unified School District bosses, Cohen, wearing shoulder pads, tight red shorts, an athletic cup and little else, is snapped lying on top of a teenage player.
District official Supt. Ramon C. Cortines admits he and others who will decide the school's fate were far from amused by the photospread.
He tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper, "This recent GQ thing has not helped matters. We’ve allowed our students to be used, and not in the most glamorous circumstances, either."
Cortines has taken aim at Birmingham High School principal Marcia Coates and athletic director Rick Prizant, and he has asked local district Supt. Jean Brown to "take the appropriate action."
Brown tells the Times the district was "very embarrassed" by the shoot.
The debate over whether Birmingham should be allowed to convert to a charter school will conclude on Wednesday (01Jul09), when the school board is scheduled to vote.