Brendan Fraser is coming forward with allegations of sexual assault by an ex-president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. In a new interview with GQ, Fraser alleges that the HFPA’s Philip Berk assaulted him at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the summer of 2003. Fraser, through his reps, asked the HFPA for an apology, which Berk says he wrote, but added “My apology admitted no wrongdoing, the usual ‘If I’ve done anything that upset Mr. Fraser, it was not intended and I apologize.’” Berk took a six-month leave of absence from the HFPA in April 2014, following backlash from his memoir, but is still a member. He denied the claim in an e-mail to GQ, saying “Mr. Fraser’s version is a total fabrication.” The HFPA did not respond to Variety’s request for comment. The actor said that the incident made him reclusive and he retreated from public life. He was rarely invited back to the Golden Globes, which the HFPA runs, and he feels as though he was blacklisted as a result. He also believes it’s partly why his career derailed, and said “The phone does stop ringing in your career, and you start asking yourself why. There’s many reasons, but was this one of them? I think it was.”
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