Brendan Fraser, an awards season frontrunner for his performance in Darren Aronofsky’s A24 drama The Whale, has said he will not attend the Golden Globes ceremony in January.
Fraser suggested in an interview with GC magazine that the decision was related to his allegation in 2018 that he was groped by Philip Berk, the former president of Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) which hands out the Globes.
“I have more history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I have respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” Fraser said. “No, I will not participate. It’s because of the history that I have with them. And my mother didn’t raise a hypocrite. You can call me a lot of things, but not that.”
Berk denied the allegation that he assaulted Fraser, whose credits include The Mummy franchise and George Of The Jungle, at a 2003 lunch at Beverly Hills Hotel.
The actor told GC that shortly after the alleged incident he declined to authorise a joint statement with the HFPA in which the group said its inquiry concluded that while Berk had touched Fraser inappropriately, it was meant as a joke.
Following a 2021 investigation by the Los Angeles Times that found financial and ethical impropriety and a lack of Black membership, Hollywood gave the group the cold shoulder, traditional broadcaster NBC stayed away from the next ceremony, which was held behind closed doors without celebrities earlier this year as the group announced its winners on Twitter.
HFPA has attempted to reinvent itself and will stage its next ceremony on January 10 2023, which will be broadcast live through a one-year deal with NBC. At time of writing it remained unclear which studios, streamers and personal publicists will engage with the group during awards season.
Berk was expelled from HFPA in April 2021 after he told members Black Lives Matter movement was a “racist hate group”.
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