As the anticipation around the 2023 Golden Globes nominations builds up, Hollywood actor Brendan Fraser, who is gearing up for his upcoming movie 'The Whale', is already signalling his intention to boycott the ceremony.
Brendan Fraser, who's receiving career-best reviews for his dramatic turn in Darren Aronofsky's 'The Whale', told GQ for its cover story that he will not attend the Golden Globes ceremony in January if he is nominated, as he is widely expected to be, reports Entertainment Weekly.
"I have more history with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I have respect for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association," he said bluntly. "No, I will not participate."
His reasoning, for those who have followed the former heartthrob's rollercoaster career, is obvious: "It's because of the history that I have with them," he explained, quoted by Entertainment Weekly. "And my mother didn't raise a hypocrite. You can call me a lot of things, but not that."
In 2018, Fraser made headlines for another GQ profile in which he opened up for the first time about his ups and downs in Hollywood, including the toll years of stunt work had taken on his body. According to Entertainment Weekly, he also shared a disturbing allegation, accusing Philip Berk, a former president and member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the organisation behind the Golden Globes, of groping and assaulting him in 2003. (Berk has denied the allegation.)
After the article came out, the HFPA issued a statement saying, in part: "The HFPA stands firmly against sexual harassment and the type of behaviour described in this article." Fraser said in the latest profile that after promising to investigate, the HFPA ultimately came back to him with a proposed joint statement that would read: "Although it was concluded that Mr Berk inappropriately touched Mr Fraser, the evidence supports that it was intended to be taken as a joke and not as a sexual advance." Fraser refused to cosign the statement. Berk remained a voting member of the HFPA until 2021 when he was expelled for sharing an article describing Black Lives Matter as a "racist hate movement" in an email to his fellow members.
"I knew they would close ranks," Fraser said of the HFPA. "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."