Brendan Fraser won’t be attending the Golden Globes after alleging he was sexually assaulted by former HFPA president
Brendan Fraser won’t be attending next year’s Golden Globes after having alleged that he was sexually assaulted by the former president of the organisation that runs the awards.
In 2018, Fraser publicly alleged that Philp Berk, a longtime Hollywood Foreign Press Association member and former president of the organisation behind the Globes, once groped him at a lunch in Beverly Hills, in 2003.
Fraser has said that the alleged incident was a factor in why he disappeared from Hollywood for so long: “I was blaming myself and I was miserable – because I was saying, ‘This is nothing; this guy reached around and he copped a feel.’ It made me feel reclusive,” he told GQ in 2018.
In 2018, Berk called Fraser’s account “a total fabrication” but acknowledged he wrote an apology to Fraser over the incident at the time. After an internal investigation conducted when Fraser went public, the HFPA concluded that Berk had “inappropriately touched” Fraser but said Berk’s action “was intended to be taken as a joke and not as a sexual advance.”
Berk remained a member of HFPA until he was expelled last year after he called Black Lives Matter “a racist hate movement”.
“I knew they would close ranks,” Fraser told GQ on Wednesday. “I knew they would kick the can down the road. I knew they would get ahead of the story. I knew that I certainly had no future with that system as it was. I think it was because it was too prickly or sharp-edged or icky for people to want to go first and invest emotionally in the situation.”
Last year’s Golden Globes were ridiculed after the organisation faced backlash over ethical indiscretions and the revelation that the group included no Black voting members. Many stars, publicists and studios announced they were boycotting the awards.
Earlier this year, the HFPA, after reforms, said the 80th Golden Globes will be broadcast on 10 January – but Fraser won’t be there.
“I have more history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I have respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” said Fraser. Asked whether he’ll be involved with the ceremony if nominated, Fraser said, “No, I will not participate.”
“It’s because of the history that I have with them,” he added. “And my mother didn’t raise a hypocrite. You can call me a lot of things, but not that.”
In Darren Aronofsky’s film The Whale, which premiered at Venice film festival to rave reviews, Fraser plays a reclusive English teacher living with obesity who attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
He’s nominated for outstanding lead performance at the upcoming Gotham Awards and is widely considered a likely best actor nominee at the Academy Awards in March.
