GLAAD Awards drop ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ after director accused of sexual assault

The GLAAD Awards have dropped Bohemian Rhapsody from their list of nominees after director Bryan Singer was accused of sexual assault.

Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic about Queen, was nominated for Outstanding Film — Wide Release at the 2019 GLAAD Media Awards.

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GLAAD made the decision after The Atlantic reported on January 23 that four men had come forward with new allegations of sexual misconduct against the director. Those four men who came forward claimed to be minors at the time of the alleged assaults and incidents of misconduct.

It is important to note that Singer was sued in 2017 for allegedly assaulting Cesar Sanchez-Guzman as a minor.

Singer denied the allegations and claimed that the story was just “conveniently timed to take advantage of (Bohemian Rhapsody’s) success” and claimed it was an act of homophobia.

GLAAD released a statement to Variety about their “difficult decision.”

“This week’s story in The Atlantic documenting unspeakable harms endured by young men and teenage boys brought to light a reality that cannot be ignored or even tacitly rewarded,” the statement reads.

“Singer’s response to The Atlantic story wrongfully used ‘homophobia’ to deflect from sexual assault allegations and GLAAD urges the media and the industry at large to not gloss over the fact that survivors of sexual assault should be put first,” GLAAD says.  

In addition to GLAAD, the Time’s Up movement released a statement on Twitter about the alleged misconduct.

“The recent allegations regarding Bryan Singer’s behavior are horrifying and MUST be taken seriously and investigated,” the statement reads.

See the full statement by Time’s Up below.

The recent allegations regarding Bryan Singer’s behavior are horrifying and MUST be taken seriously and investigated. pic.twitter.com/twqwbO2TJp

— TIME’S UP (@TIMESUPNOW) January 24, 2019

Queen guitarist Brian May has posted a lengthy apology on Instagram for defending the director. His apology comes from when a fan suggested May unfollow Singer after the allegations.

May responded saying, “you need to look after your own business and stop telling me what to do. And you need to learn to respect the fact that a man or woman is innocent until proven guilty.”

See the full apology below.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Dear Folks – I was shocked and saddened to realise what I had done by my hasty and inconsiderate IG reply to this lady yesterday. I’ve posted an apology to her in the ‘reply’ box, but it seems to have disappeared – so I’m going to try to repeat it here, to be clear. ———- Dear Sue, I’m so sorry that I responded to your post so snappily and inconsiderately. My response was a result of my perception that someone was telling me what to do. I now realise that I was completely wrong in thinking that. You were actually just trying to protect me, for which I thank you. I am mortified to discover the effect my words produced. I had no idea that saying someone was innocent until proven guilty could be interpreted as “defending“ Bryan Singer. I had absolutely no intention of doing that. I guess I must be naive, because also it had never occurred to me that ‘following’ a person on Instagram could be interpreted as approving of that person. The only reason I followed Bryan Singer was that we were working with him on a project. That situation came to an end when Mr Singer was removed during the shooting of the film, but I suppose unfollowing him never occurred to me as a necessity. Now, because of this misunderstanding, I have unfollowed. I’m so sorry. This must have caused you a lot of upset. I wish I could take the comment back, but all I can do is apologise, and hope that my apology will begin to make amends. Sadly, this is all very public, but since I snapped at you in public, it’s only fitting that I should apologise in public. I’m going to try to follow you so we can communicate privately if you want. With love – Bri. —— I should add that this is also a sincere apology to anyone else out there that I inadvertently offended. No such offence was intended and I will be more careful in future. Bri

A post shared by Brian Harold May (@brianmayforreal) on Jan 24, 2019 at 8:25pm PST

Bohemian Rhapsody is nominated for Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars and won the award for Best Motion Picture — Drama at the Golden Globes. It was also the highest grossing music biopic of all time.

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