Brendan Fraser has previously announced that even if he receives a Best Actor nomination for his muchdiscussed performance in The Whale, he won’t be attending the 2023 Golden Globes.
What motivated this latest decision, however, happened even before the actor had been away from theaters for about a decade.
In 2018, he revealed in an interview with GQ that he was a victim of sexual harassment in 2003. At the time, Fraser said he was molested by Philip Berk, former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) Globe of Gold. The experience would have muddled his idea of ”who he was and what he did” and may actually have influenced his departure from the big screen.
Understand:
Moment dominated by fear
According to Brendan Fraser, the situation occurred in the summer of 2003 at the Beverly Hills Hotel during a luncheon hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the organization responsible for the Golden Globes.
Upon exiting the hotel, Fraser was greeted by Philip Berk, the association’s former president. Amid a crowded room, Berk reached out to shake the actor’s hand. At that moment, he would have grabbed the Whale star’s ass, defining what happened as a moment of panic and fear.
“His left hand reaches out and grabs my buttocks and one of his fingers touches me. And he’s starting to move it,” the actor said in a 2018 interview with North American GQ.
Am I still scared? Absolutely. Do I feel like I have to say something? Absolutely. Have you often wished for it? Absolutely. have i stopped Absolutely.
Escape
Fraser reportedly managed to remove Berk’s hand from his body and ran from the room. Outside the venue, he passed a police officer and was unable to confess. At home, the actor told his thenwife Afton what had happened.
“I felt bad. I felt like a kid. I felt like I had a lump in my throat. I thought I was going to cry,” he said.
Fraser considered making the event public. But ultimately, he mused, “I didn’t want to deal with how it made me feel or become part of my narrative.”
Philip Berk version
In a report to journalist Sharon Waxman for The New York Times, Philip Berk said he just pinched Brendan Fraser’s ass, in a joking tone. He further confirmed to GQ: “Mr. Fraser’s version is a total fabrication.”
The actor’s representatives have asked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for a written apology. Berk admitted he wrote a letter to Fraser about the incident, but stated, “My apology did not admit any wrongdoing, the usual ‘If I did something that upset Mr. Fraser, it was unintentional and I apologize ‘”.
The Foreign Press Association threw Berk out of the organization in April 2021 after he emailed his colleagues calling the Black Lives Matter movement a “racist hate movement” and calling cofounder Patrisse Cullors for buying a house criticized in California’s Topanga Canyon.