Yahoo Movies Brendan Fraser Compares a Golden Globe Award to a 'Hood Ornament': Not 'Meaningful to Me'
David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Brendan Fraser
Brendan Fraser has no interest in winning a Golden Globe award.
Though he was nominated in the best drama actor category this year for The Whale, he did not attend the ceremony and made it clear why not. Fraser, 54, previously claimed that former Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Philip Berk sexually assaulted him in 2003 while at a luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel — an alleged incident Berk, 89, disputed. Fraser has said he believes he was blacklisted in Hollywood partly due to the aftermath of the alleged incident.
On The Howard Stern Show Tuesday, Fraser discussed this year's Golden Globes, saying Austin Butler's win for Elvis in his category was "well deserved" and a "big win for him." However, for Fraser, he didn't care to win that trophy anyway.
"I found myself wondering is this a cynical nomination. I couldn't really tell because of my history with them and that I still have yet to see the results from their reformation. We all are still awaiting that, to tell you the truth," he said. "Get it or don't get it, doesn't matter. What does matter is that it would mean nothing to me. I don't want it. I didn't ask to be considered even, that was presumed. I know that would displease many people for lots of reasons, but...."
Fraser continued, "They needed me, I didn't need them. Because it wouldn't be meaningful to me. Where am I gonna put that hood ornament? What would I do with that?"
Monica Schipper/WireImage Brendan Fraser
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The actor explained that "it's my fight, no one else's," meaning, "I don't need everyone to stand in solidarity with me." When host Stern, 69, asked whether Fraser felt other actors should have stood in solidarity and boycotted the Golden Globes because of his allegations, Fraser said, "Maybe. But, you know, it would be a leap of faith for whoever that would be. It would be a calculated risk and it could also be trivialized very easily by the cynical view of this all."
About not attending, he added, "Honestly, my mother didn't raise a hypocrite, and I didn't wanna sit and feel like I really don't know if I want this."
Instead, he said, "It would be meaningful — if they wanted to make amends — to issue an apology that made sense ... that they share the investigation that they did into me and my family and my friends — I never saw the result of that report. They wouldn't give it to me, they said no it's ours. So whatever's in it they don't want me to read it. Instead I was given a press release that said it was a joke."
"I honestly don't even wanna think about it that much because it's not that important to me," said Fraser. "And the good news is, they did something important in that broadcast and it changed my thinking about them: they put Zelenskyy front and center. They let him have the stage, and that's a powerful statement and something I can get behind and support."
Fraser, who won the Critics Choice Award this year, said that he will be attending the upcoming Academy Awards next month.
The HFPA expelled longtime member Berk from the organization in 2021 after he sent an email to fellow members calling the Black Lives Matter movement a "racist hate movement."
RELATED VIDEO: Brendan Fraser Discusses How Obesity and Acceptance Is Presented in The Whale
Fraser previously alleged that the assault happened when Berk reached out to shake his hand on his way out of the hotel. "His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around," Fraser claimed to GQ in 2018.
The alleged incident left Fraser overcome with panic and fear. "I felt ill," he said at the time, recalling his emotions after he removed Berk's hand. "I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry. I felt like someone had thrown invisible paint on me."
Berk did not previously respond to PEOPLE's request for comment about the alleged incident, but has denied the assault ever happened to The New York Times. "Mr. Fraser's version is a total fabrication," he also said in a statement to GQ, acknowledging that he wrote a letter to Fraser about the alleged incident. "My apology admitted no wrongdoing, the usual 'If I've done anything that upset Mr. Fraser, it was not intended and I apologize.' "
