Bruno film passed minus Jackson

Bruno will be released internationally on Friday

A new version of spoof film Bruno, with a scene featuring Michael Jackson's sister cut out, has been passed by the British Board of Film Classification.

The scene, which showed fashionista Bruno forcing La Toya Jackson to eat sushi off the naked bodies of workmen, was cut after her brother's death.

Universal Pictures said it was cut "out of respect" for the Jackson family.

The cut scene, which lasted over a minute, was removed after Jackson died on 25 June.

It also showed Bruno trying to steal Michael's number from his sister's phone.

'200 lawsuits'

Meanwhile, in a rare interview where he is not "in character", Sacha Baron Cohen has said he was "terrified" about whether the film would succeed.

He told David Letterman's Late Show on US TV he had been surprised by the success of his previous film, Borat, which follows a Kazakhstani journalist on a visit to the US.

"We never expected to make that kind of money - we thought it was going to be very niche," he said.

When we were making this film, we wanted it to be better than Borat and we thought, 'what could people see that they'd never seen before on film?'

Sacha Baron Cohen

"We were surprised that anyone wanted to see it - I still am."

He said people often told him they found it hard to believe the interviews in his films were real and not set up.

"Yes, it's real. We had the same problem with Borat.

"No-one believed it was real until we had, I think, 200 lawsuits."

He said that, in Bruno, which will be released internationally on Friday, he was most proud of an interview between the main character and a "real terrorist".

"When we were making this film, we wanted it to be better than Borat and we thought, 'what could people see that they'd never seen before on film?'

"And one thing could be a comedian interviewing a terrorist which I think has never been done before, and for good reason."