Brendan Fraser Reveals Sexual Assault That Made Him Quit Hollywood

Brendan Fraser hasn’t been in the Hollywood spotlight for over 10 years, and now he has revealed his reason for that. During an interview with GQ Magazine, Brendan claimed that he was sexually assaulted by Hollywood Foreign Press Association President Philip Berk. He conveys that he was emotionally scarred by the alleged incident which made him rethink his acting career.

“Am I still frightened? Absolutely. Do I feel like I need to say something? Absolutely. Have I wanted to many, many times? Absolutely. Have I stopped myself? Absolutely,” Fraser said during the interview about the turmoil of feelings behind making the decision to share his story.

Berk has said that he has a different memory of what happened. In his memoir, he wrote that he placed his hand on Fraser’s butt “in jest” during a hug at an HFPA event, IndieWire reports. The Mummy actor says that there was a lot more to it than that. He says that the former HFPA president grabbed his butt cheek and touched his “taint” with one of his fingers.

“And he starts moving it around. 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,” Brendan said.

Brendan Fraser on his comeback, disappearance, and the experience that nearly ended his career https://t.co/3VFwOFq36V pic.twitter.com/egicR9K4sW

— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) February 22, 2018

Fraser said that he went home immediately after and told his wife about it. He confessed that didn’t go public about it at the time because he didn’t want it to be permanently attached to his “narrative.” He was also torn about the incident. On one hand, he was depressed about it and on the other, he felt that it shouldn’t be such a big deal to him. It affected the way that he saw himself and what he was doing in his career, he adds.

According to Indiewire, Berk had admitted that he wrote an apology to Fraser at the time but that he did not confess “to any wrongdoing.” He called the GQ story a “complete fabrication.”

As Vulture notes, the alleged assault isn’t the only thing that made Brendan step away from his Hollywood acting career. He told GQ that he had to undergo surgery because of injuries he sustained while filming the Mummy movies.

Despite his past turmoil about his career, Brendan Fraser is going to be on a new show. He will play James Fletcher Chace in Danny Boyle’s FX series Trust, which premieres on March 25.