Fraser blames groping for career slide
Brendan Fraser was a bigname in the ’ 90s. With starring roles in Encino Man, Airheads and The Mummy, everyone knew that wideeyed face. But in the following decade, Fraser seemed to fall out of the spotlight.
In an intimate new interview for GQ, the actor provided a few reasons why: Stuntwork had taken a toll on his body, keeping him in and out of hospitals for seven years; the dissolution of his marriage to actress Afton Smith, with whom he has three children, forced him to pay hefty alimony and child support payments he can no longer afford; and a dip in self-esteem after taking projects he just wasn’t proud of.
However, there was one incident Fraser had never discussed before that he felt gave his career pause.
In the summer of 2003, Fraser claims while at the Beverly Hills Hotel for a lunch with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, he had a disturbing encounter with the HFPA president that left him distressed.
According to GQ: On Fraser’s way out of the hotel, he was hailed by Philip Berk, a former president of the HFPA. In the midst of a crowded room, Berk reached out to shake Fraser’s hand. Much of what happened next Berk recounted in his memoir: He pinched Fraser’s ass — in jest, according to Berk. But Fraser says what Berk did was more than a pinch: “His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around.
“I felt ill,” Fraser said. “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 called the incident “a total fabrication.”