Brendan Fraser has a tumultuous past with the Golden Globes, but it didn’t stop him from being nominated for Best Actor in a Drama at the 2023 Golden Globes for his critically lauded work in The Whale. But although most candidates are thrilled to attend the awards presentation in hopes of giving an acceptance speech and hanging out with fellow celebs, don’t expect Fraser to show up to the ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 10.
In an interview with GQ in 2018, Fraser claimed that he was grabbed by Philip Berk, the former chairman of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which oversees the Golden Globes, during a 2003 event at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “His left hand swings around and holds my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint,” he said. “And he begins to move it about.” Berk confessed in his biography that he stroked Fraser’s buttocks “in fun,” but he told GQ that Fraser’s claim was a “complete fiction.” However, the actor claimed to have felt terror and anxiety. “I felt sick,” he said. “I felt like a kid,” he added.”I felt like I had a ball in my throat. “I was expecting to weep.”
Four years later, and with The Whale generating significant awards season excitement, GQ asked Fraser if he would attend the Globes if nominated. “I have less regard for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association than I do for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” he added. “No, I will not take part.” It’s because of my relationship with them. And my mother did not bring up a hypocrite. “You may call me a variety of names, but not that.”
Despite completing an inquiry and determining that Berk did touch Fraser, the HFPA took no disciplinary action against him at the time. Instead, GQ said that the charity requested that the celebrity sign a press statement indicating that “it was intended to be viewed as a joke and not as a sexual approach,” which he declined. “I think it was because it was too thorny, sharp-edged, or nasty for people to go first and emotionally participate in the scenario,” he told the publication in 2022. Fraser claims the HFPA has yet to apologize, which the organization rejects, but Berk’s account actually backs Fraser up, telling GQ in 2018 that his apology admitted “no wrongdoing” and was simply “the normal, ‘If I’ve done anything that hurt Mr. Fraser, it was not intended and I regret.'”
Berk was only suspended from the HFPA in 2021 when it was revealed that he sent an essay to members branding Black Lives Matter a “racist hate movement” as part of a massive exposé against the organization, which led to NBC canceling the Globes event the following year. Fraser says he is willing to listen to the HFPA if they want to make apologies, but he is skeptical that the organization has undergone major improvements as promised. “Perhaps time will tell if they will,” he remarked. “I have no idea what they’re going to do.”