Sacha Baron Cohen - Sacha Baron Cohen Slipped Past Oscars Security Check With Ashes

The Brit arrived at the Academy Awards in character as his bearded The DICtator character General Aladeen after Oscars bosses initially banned him from the prizegiving, fearing he'd "somehow undermine the sanctity" of the ceremony - and plain-clothes FBI agents pounced on him and conducted a search of his person and his vehicle.

He says, "The policemen... surrounded the car and they had, on their clipboards, a picture of me dressed as The DICtator and they said, 'We're gonna have to search your car now... We have reason to believe you're bringing in firearms, which seemed strange.

"But I did have an urn full of sort of fake ashes of the late Kim Jong-Il. Luckily, the policeman was looking for firearms and not an urn full of ashes and so we were able to smuggle ourselves in."

Cohen was forcibly removed from the red carpet minutes later after pretending to accidentally tip the ashes over E! News red carpet reporter Ryan Seacrest.