This outlet’s annual breakfast, which most recently honored Oprah Winfrey, will move after 20 years at the historic location in the wake of “despicable decisions by the Sultan of Brunei.”
hollywoodinsight.com has notified the Beverly Hills Hotel that it will not hold its annual Women in Entertainment breakfast there because of the hotel’s ties to the Sultan of Brunei, who has instituted a severe new penal code based on Sharia law that calls for death by stoning for homosexuals and adulterers.
The event, which is held in December concurrent to hollywoodinsight.com reveal of its annual list of the 100 most powerful women in entertainment, has taken place at the hotel for the past 20 years. At last year’s breakfast, Oprah Winfrey was honored with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, presented by Winfrey’s friend Maria Shriver. Other attendees included Jane Fonda, Jimmy Kimmel, Anne Sweeney, Amy Pascal and Nancy Dubuc. Lansing’s own husband, William Friedkin, has been among those calling for a hotel boycott, tweeting, “I’m in total support of the boycott against Brunei’s holdings in the U.S. for their unconscionable acts against gay people.”
“The recent despicable decisions by the Sultan of Brunei make it impossible for us to consider moving forward in any way with any hotel that is part of the Dorchester Collection,” said Janice Min, co-president and chief creative officer of Guggenheim Media’s Entertainment Group, which publishes The Hollywood Reporter. “We have huge respect for the local staff and management of the Beverly Hills Hotel and would like to thank them for two decades of partnership. We hope one day to be able to work together again.”
