Brendan Fraser Says Being Sexually Assaulted May Have Derailed His Career

Perhaps best known for starring as Rick O'Connell in The Mummy trilogy and the title character in 1997's George of the Jungle, actor Brendan Fraser was an omnipresent Hollywood fixture in the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s. But his career has noticeably waned over the past decade, leading journalists and commenters to ask multiple variations of the same question: What happened to Brendan Fraser? A new profile of Fraser by GQ asks the same question, and adds more context to the answer: In an interview with the magazine, Fraser spoke publicly for the first time about his experience of sexual assault, alleging that he was groped by former Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) president Philip Berk in the summer of 2003. Fraser also shared his belief that he may have been blacklisted by the HFPA after the incident and that his career may have suffered as a result.

In the interview, Fraser said that at an HFPA luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Berk reached out his hand to shake Fraser's, then went much further. "His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint," Fraser told GQ. "And he starts moving it around." Fraser said that at the time, he panicked: "I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry."

In an email to GQ, Berk denied these claims, reportedly writing, "Mr. Fraser's version is a total fabrication." The HFPA, meanwhile, declined to comment for GQ's story. Fraser, for his part, told the magazine he decided not to go public with his story because he was afraid of "it becoming part of my narrative." Through his reps, Fraser did request a written apology from the HFPA, and Berk told GQ that he did write Fraser a letter but never admitted any wrongdoing. (This letter was referred to in a 2005 New York Times story that read in part, "Mr. Berk wrote a letter of apology to the actor Brendan Fraser for having grabbed the actor's buttocks during a ceremony to announce a charitable contribution, though Mr. Berk said in an interview that he did no such thing and wrote the letter only to mollify the actor.")

Letter aside, Fraser said, the experience "made me retreat. It made me feel reclusive." Fraser also shared that he wonders if the HFPA retaliated against him after the incident by depriving him of Golden Globes invitations or other professional opportunities. "Am I still frightened? Absolutely," he said. "Do I feel like I need to say something? Absolutely. Have I wanted to many, many times? Absolutely. Have I stopped myself? Absolutely."

Fraser's account is disconcertingly reminiscent of reports from women in Hollywood who have spoken out about experiencing professional retaliation after being harassed or assaulted. Actress Mira Sorvino, for instance, said recently that after being sexually harassed by disgraced former studio head Harvey Weinstein, she was relegated to "the fringes of the Miramax family"; director Peter Jackson even admitted that he blacklisted both Sorvino and actress Ashley Judd, who also has spoken out about being harassed by Weinstein, after Weinstein gave Jackson "false information" about the two actresses.

And the pattern of men in power hurting the careers of those they have harassed or assaulted is in no way unique to the entertainment industry. A comprehensive 2016 study by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that some 75 percent of U.S. survivors of workplace harassment experienced retaliation when they spoke up about their experiences, with male-dominated and service-oriented industries as some of the biggest hotbeds of workplace injustice.

What is unusual is a man publicly opening up about experiencing sexual harassment, which is one of the reasons Fraser's account is garnering so much attention. As the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network points out, men who have survived harassment or abuse may experience intense shame that they were not "strong enough" to fight off an attack; their sexuality may also be questioned, leading many men to stay silent. Fraser's story is a reminder that while sexual misconduct is disproportionately experienced by women, it can happen to anyone, regardless of gender or sexuality.

More on sexual harassment and assault:

• Meet the Sexual Assault Survivors Attending Trump's State of the Union

• Terry Crews Reveals He Was Sexually Assaulted by a "High-Level" Hollywood Executive

• What Is Sexual Grooming? 7 Things to Know About This Abuse Tactic

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