bohemian rhapsody rami malek bryan singer

Bryan Singer Gives Thanks for the Golden Globe Everyone Tried to Pretend They Weren’t Giving Him

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Last night, Bohemian Rhapsody won multiple Golden Globes, but as the recipients–first Rami Malek and then producer Graham King–went through the usual “thank you’s” to people who worked on the film, both noticeably left out the film’s original director, Bryan Singer.

As a reminder, Singer was replaced as director of the movie after reportedly failing to show up to work “on several occasions” and getting into an on-set fight with Malek, though the official line was that he left because of “a personal health matter concerning Bryan and his family.”

At the time of the fights and the disappearances, Singer, who has long been the subject of rumors as well as specific accusations of sexual abuse against young men and underage boys, was sued for allegedly raping a man named Cesar Sanchez-Guzman at a party in 2003, when Sanchez-Guzman was just 17.

So he was replaced by Dexter Fletcher, but Singer retained credit as director. Last night, the Hollywood Foreign Press and everyone involved with Bohemian Rhapsody might have been ignoring Singer’s attachment to the film, but Singer wasn’t. He took to Instagram to remind everyone that they were essentially celebrating him and his work, even if they were pretending otherwise.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

What an honor. Thank you #HollywoodForeignPress

A post shared by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on

One year ago at the 2018 Golden Globes, the words of the night were Time’s Up. Yet here we are, still pretending that Bryan Singer doesn’t have years of credible allegations of horrific sexual assaults and abuses of power stacked up against him.

Sure, he was removed from Bohemian Rhapsody, but he kept his director credit and Fox even campaigned to get him a Best Director Oscar. He was also hired to direct Red Sonja after his removal, so not only is Hollywood collectively ignoring years of abuse allegations, but even his terrible, unprofessional on-set behavior isn’t keeping him from maintaining the career that has directly afforded him the power to allegedly assault so many young men, many of whom were aspiring young actors.

We all know that in the era of #MeToo, the process of holding people accountable for their actions and their abuses of power is highly selective. But the silence around Singer is a glaring, inexplicable hole in what was supposed to be our collective pledge to do better.

In October, Singer preemptively denied allegations that he said were set to be revealed in an Esquire article. That article has yet to be published, and I do wonder if it would make a difference. A lot of powerful men (Weinstein, Cosby, Spacey, C.K., etc.) have seen the public and their industry hit their breaking points with them after years or even decades of being “poorly kept secrets.” Could one incisive exposé be Singer’s breaking point? Or is he going to continue to be Hollywood’s completely mediocre blind spot?

(image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.