Sacha Baron Cohen spilled Kim Jong-Il “ashes” on red carpet

The 40-year-old ‘Borat’ star arrived at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles dressed as General Aladeen – his character from forthcoming movie ‘The Dictator’ - and came equipped with a golden urn bearing the face of the late North Korean leader.

Asked about his outfit by E! News presenter Ryan, he said he was wearing a creation by John Galliano - the former Christian Dior designer who was dismissed after an anti-semitic rant.

Sacha – who was almost banned from the ceremony because of his clothing plans – added: "The socks are from K-Mart ... Saddam Hussein once said to me, socks are socks, don't waste money!"

Talking in character, he said he was excited about attending the prestigious awards at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre because: "It gave me an opportunity to bring my dear friend and doubles tennis partner Kim Jong-Il.

"It was his dream to come to the Oscars, and to be sprinkled over the red carpet and over Halle Berry's chest again.”

He then pretended to lose his grip on the urn and spilled the contents over Ryan’s Burberry tuxedo before being pulled away by security guards and telling the interviewer: "If somebody asks you what you're wearing, you say Kim Jong-Il."

But Ryan insists he expected something to happen in the interview, and even brought a spare jacket just in case.

He told E! News: "Let me walk you through how this all came together. I had heard that the Dictator wanted to come and wanted to do an interview and wanted to do it in character. Very deliberate, all of this.

"In the back of my mind, I thought, 'OK, there's no way a conversation with him in character is going to go as planned’. As we were talking, I could just feel that something was about to happen, and sure enough it did. But I had two jackets. I was red-carpet ready!"

This is not the first stunt Sacha has pulled - he landed on Eminem bottom-first at the MTV Movie Awards in 2009 dressed as the titular character of his film 'Bruno'.