Brendan Fraser Claims Hollywood Executive Groped Him
- By
- On Top Magazine Staff
- | February 23, 2018
Brendan Fraser has claimed that a Hollywood executive groped him in the summer of 2003.
Fraser, who stars in the upcoming FX anthology series Trust, is best known for playing Rick O'Connell in The Mummy film trilogy.
In an interview with GQ, Fraser alleged that he was sexually assaulted by Philip Berk, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization that hosts the Golden Globes.
“His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it,” Fraser said of the incident, which occurred during a HFPA luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry.”
“I felt like someone had thrown invisible paint on me,” he added.
Berk has dismissed the charge, saying that he remembers pinching Fraser's butt as a joke. Under pressure from Fraser's representatives, Berk penned a letter.
“My apology admitted no wrongdoing,” he told GQ. “The usual, 'If I've done anything that upset Mr. Fraser, it was not intended and I apologize.'”
Fraser cited the incident, along with marital troubles and injuries from stunts, as one of the reasons he disappeared from the Hollywood spotlight for nearly a decade.
The incident, Fraser said, “made me retreat. It made me feel reclusive.”