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.”