Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher’s unconventional approach to secrecy around their April 2010 union provided both tabloid gossip columns with an amusing tale and Hollywood weddings with a blueprint for creative deflection. For fans, it confirmed just how well this playful power couple orchestrated appearances. It wasn’t the typical grand occasion you might expect for stars of their caliber, not at least on the initially presented scale.
They had guests trick everyone into thinking there’d be a much different “wedding party,” a large event in Beverly Hills designed to throw paparazzi off. While the paparazzi were chasing after this elaborately plotted mirage, Coco and Isla (as they prefer to be called) quietly eloped with just a handful present. It was an intimate ceremony that took place at the very back of a local registrar, in what is basically LA office space for weddings.
This wasn’t about running from public scrutiny; it was control over the narrative in their world, much like how Cohen crafts outrageous characters to expose societal norms. Their clever ruse reveals their understanding of how pop-culture works around itself – feed fake fire, control the true heat. To an extent, though subtle it wasn’t a rejection of fans; rather more a choice within publicness to dictate which stories resonated most vividly. For Cohen specifically, it speaks volumes because he famously dives headlong into public’s perceptions through his mockumentary personas…then gets very quiet about everything off-camera. This quiet but playful rebellion around their wedding fits his character. It underscores how truly intimate, down-the hallway sort of affair would be the one everyone remembers most years from now – it humanizes Cohen and Fisher outside their “personas.”