Media Scandals: HFPA Vs. Golden Globes–Major Dispute Goes to California’s State Attorney General’s Office

Veteran board members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are seeking to re-establish the organization, two years after the Globes and other assets of the HFPA were acquired by Dick Clark Productions and investor Todd Boehly’s Eldridge holding company.

The move stems from major dispute between HFPA members and the new stewards of the Globes.

HFPA board members gathered earlier this week for a vote to re-establish the organization. The HFPA, which was a nonprofit organization, was believed to have been dissolved. DCP has long had an interest and right to produce the Golden Globe Awards telecast under a decades-old deal struck with then-HFPA leaders.

Helen Hoehne, who was president of HFPA at the time of the 2023 transaction, is now president of the for-profit Golden Globes LLC. In a vote held Thursday via video call by about legacy 55 HFPA members, Hoehne was voted out as the organization’s president.

Another commitment made in 2023 was a financial offer for members of either a $250,000 one-time buyout or a $75,000 salary for five years to compensate for their ongoing service as voters for the new Globes organization.

In February, the GG said that it would eliminate the $75,000 annual salaries as of this year. Members were offered a one-time $102,500 in severance.

Many members have been in mediation talks in recent weeks with reps for the for-profit Globes over the severance figure.

The decision was communicated to legacy HFPA members who opted for the five-year salary plan as “an acknowledgement that continuing to pay members could add to a perception of bias in voting.” The spokesperson stated that the Globes was “fully meeting its contractual obligations to voters by offering the severance.”

California’s State Attorney General’s Office

That decision by Globes leader further frustrated members who had already expressed concerns about aspects of the transaction to California’s state Attorney General’s office, which has oversight of nonprofits and charitable activities.

That office has steady stream of questions about the transaction raised by board members, according to multiple sources.

The HFPA transaction in 2023 came on the heels of controversy and criticism of the press association for its practices involving the administration and judging processes around the annual awards. The group was also severely scrutinized for the lack of diversity among its membership as detailed in a 2021 expose by the Los Angeles Times. The fallout for the HFPA group included the decision by longtime TV partner NBC to bow out of airing the 2022 Golden Globes ceremony. The ceremony returned to the airwaves in 2023 under a one-time deal with NBC.

In 2024 the ceremony moved to CBS and later that year CBS renewed the deal for five years.

In May 2023, Joseph Zimring, the state’s Supervising Deputy Attorney General, sent a letter to attorneys at law firm Morgan Lewis representing DCP and Eldridge that indicated the state’s intention to sign off on the deal. According to a source, the steady stream of comments and questions from HFPA members has spurred requests for documents and verifications that have delayed for months the Attorney General’s office from giving the final signoff to the dissolution of the HFPA. Amid rising tensions over the rescinded salaries, the lack of state signoff was seen as opening a door for the members to vote to re-establish the HFPA as an active organization.

“With regard to the charitable trust assets you are seeking to transfer, we have reviewed the information you provided, including the representation that Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) expects that at least $44 million of the $48 million it will receive from the transaction will be transferred to the new Golden Globes Foundation upon the dissolution of the HFPA,” Zimring wrote to Morgan Lewis attorney Karen Absesamis in May 2023.

Zimring wrote that the state would bless the deal and the creation of a new Golden Globe Foundation nonprofit to take over the money held by the HFPA’s previous charitable trust as long as standard conditions were met. The HFPA’s trust coffers were fueled for decades by license fees and other proceeds from the Golden Globes Awards. As Zimring spelled out in his letter, “the Hollywood Foreign Press Association holds assets subject to a charitable trust to the extent that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Charitable Trust is entitled to 5% of the net profits from the Golden Globe Awards.”

The specific complaints directed to state officials are unclear: HFPA members have retained attorney Reynolds Cafferata to represent them as they seek to revisit and possibly unravel the 2023 transaction with DCP and Eldridge.

Cafferata did not return multiple requests for comment on Wednesday. A representative for the state Attorney General’s office had no immediate comment on the matter.

Representatives for Eldridge, DCP and the Golden Globes declined to comment.

The decision to do so with a vote held June 30 sparked the resignation of at least two board members who joined the body in 2021 as it was reeling from scandals and controversy that alienated Hollywood talent and studios. Dr. Joanna Massey submitted her resignation on Tuesday morning. Jeff Harris, a longtime industry consultant, has resigned the same day.

Massey, an industry vet with senior communications posts at CBS, UPN and Lionsgate, said that the recent actions taken by board members were “a clear breach of fiduciary duty,” among other issues.

“We approved and executed a binding legal agreement to sell the Golden Globes and dissolve the HFPA—an action I believe the membership supported in order to preserve the Golden Globes and continue their admirable charitable work. That decision reflected a difficult but undeniable reality: Hollywood community made clear it would not support the Globes as long as HFPA members remained involved. The transaction was conducted with full transparency and due process, as all of the paperwork, note, recordings and emails demonstrate,” Massey wrote, according to a copy of the memo.

“The current effort to reverse it — by questioning the deal, reviving the HFPA, and reinstating memberships — is, in my view, fundamentally flawed and legally without merit. I had hoped to remain on the Board to support a good-faith examination of the facts. However, based on what I’ve been told about the June 30, 2025 membership meeting, it is clear that exploration is not the goal and reversing the deal is,” she wrote. “In my experience as an Independent Director on several public and private company boards, the actions now being taken by the board represent a clear breach of fiduciary duty.”

Media Scandals: HFPA Vs. Golden Globes–Major Dispute Goes to California’s State Attorney General’s Office

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