by Thinus Ferreira
War is reportedly raging behind the credibility-damaged Golden Globe Awards, while Laverne Cox also suddenly announced she's abruptly gone from NBCUniversal's E! (DStv 124) red carpet coverage after just a few years.
MultiChoice's M-Net (DStv 101) which has shown the Golden Globe Awards for years has dumped the Hollywood award show and won't have it this year for DStv subscribers.
An investigation in 2021 damaged the credibility of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) and exposed and revealed multiple issues ranging from a lack of diversity under the voting member corps, numerous ethical concerns and allegations of corruption like HFPA members being influenced by gifts, trips and other perks.
NBC decided not to broadcast the Golden Globes in 2022 following an industry-wide boycott which was held as a private event without any Hollywood stars and even with reforms the Golden Globes reputation remains in tatters.
A small event took place in January 2023, and again in January 2024 – with this one as the first ceremony after Dick Clark Productions and Eldridge Industries took full control over it from the HFPA.
The New York Post reports a bitter war is raging behind the scenes of this Sunday's 82nd Golden Globes between Eldridge Industries and the HFPA since a lot of them are this year not even allowed inside the hotel ballroom.
When Todd Boehley's Eldridge Industries took over the Golden Globes the deal was made to split the organisation into the awards ceremony that makes money, and the "non-profit" HFPA.
It was agreed that the so-called "legacy HFPA members" - 66 of them taken over into the new restructuring - would get paid a salary of R1.4 million ($75 000) per year, for 5 years, health insurance, as well as voting rights for the Golden Globes for life.
This apparently also included 4 tickets to the Golden Globes Awards.
Unfortunately for these HFPA members, nobody specified where exactly they would be seated and it seems it's no longer inside the actual ballroom with the Hollywood crowd the HFPA members were so determined to take selfies with in previous years as they raked in gifts, travel and other perks.
The newspaper reports about 50 of them were invited, only on Friday, to a "viewing party" which is a TV set in an adjacent room inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel where they can watch the Golden Globes like the rest of viewers.
Meanwhile, in a separate development further chipping away at what E! used to be, Laverne Cox is gone from NBCUniversal's E! red carpet coverage for the 2025 Golden Globes.
This is E! coverage that DStv subscribers in South Africa and the rest of Africa won't see live or before the actual award show but only almost a day later.
Laverne Cox is gone from E! after just three years since she joined E! in January 2022 to ostensibly take its awards show red carpet coverage forward after the departure of Giuliana Rancic.
In a statement on Instagram (with nothing from NBCUniversal or E! executives who were quoted when she started) Laverne Cox notes: "With an incredible amount of gratitude, I've decided not to return as host of E! Live from the Red Carpet coverage".
"I'm so incredibly proud of the work we did over my three-year tenure. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to everyone at NBCUniversal, E! Entertainment and Den of Thieves for your incredible support."
Instead of Laverne Cox, E! is now using for its pre-but-coming-in-post red carpet coverage the E! News cohost Keltie Knight, as well as Zuri Hall and American comedian Heather McMahan.
E! didn't bother with any press release to the media about its Golden Globes coverage plans as it used to do in the past.
In addition, NBCUniversal had no comment about Laverne Cox's exit from its E!'s red carpet coverage when asked and said it had no statement to make.
