Why was Brendan Fraser away from the cinema and the stage for so long? The crisis that began with the sexual abuse he suffered in 2003

brendan fraser It is trending these days for its first Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in The Whale (The whale), in which he plays an obese, gay man deeply depressed by the death of his brother, who has resorted to binge eating as a way to assuage his grief.

Fraser’s acceptance speech at another award, the Critic’s Choice Awards, in which he talks about getting up and going towards the lightmoved moviegoers, who remember him for his roles as George of the Jungle (1997)the saga The Mummy (1999, 2001 and 2008), Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) and escape from planet earth (2013).

Drastic weight gain and depression were part of his crisis for a few years, starting in 2018, when denounced a powerful Hollywood executive for sexual assaultPhilip Berk, who was president of the Foreign Press Association, or what is the same, the organizer of the golden globes awards.

Fraser specifically said that Berk groped her genitals during a working lunch in 2003. That, added to his divorce and the death of his mother, threw him into a depression that, combined with his health problems, forced him to take a break from his career.

What came from there was an internal investigation by the HFPA, which then produced a report that Berk had indeed touched the actor inappropriately, but that the evidence suggested that he had done it “as a joke”, and not with sexual intentions. They then asked Fraser to sign a statement attached to theirs, but refused to share the full report with him.

From then on, some media and the public interpreted that Fraser had been blacklisted by Hollywood for his accusation against Berk. This, who was deposed from the presidency of the HFPA years later, due to another problem, has always maintained that the accusation was a “complete lie”, but it is too late, since In his memoirs published in 2014, he had already admitted that he had played it “as a joke”.

With just 4 projects between 2014 and 2020, the previously prolific Fraser decided to return full-time to acting in 2021 with The Whalebut announced that if he won a Golden Globe, he would not go, given the lack of intentions of reconciliation or apologies from the organization for the treatment they gave him in 2018. Indeed, he was nominated for that award for best actor, but did not attend the ceremony. (AND)