There’s never a dull moment over at the Golden Globes.
Eight days after a group of former HFPA members filed a $150 million 20-count lawsuit in federal court that named PMC CEO Jay Penske and Golden Globes Foundation CEO Gregory Goeckner as defendants, more drama ensued.
Sources tell Page Six Hollywood that the foundation’s board fired Goeckner on Aug. 6 following a near-unanimous vote.
Multiple sources familiar with the inner workings of the Golden Globes describe Goeckner’s ouster as a successful “coup” that was spearheaded by foundation board members Silvia Bizio and Raffi Boghossian. One source described the move as a power grab made without Penske’s involvement or blessing.
“They took all the responsible people who were there for charitable, altruistic reasons and replaced them with HFPA sycophants,” says one source. “All the law firms were fired, the auditing company was fired, the publicist was fired. Now they’re hiring people who will not get in their way to reconstitute the Hollywood Foreign Press under the auspices of the foundation.”
A large chunk of change hangs in the balance. The foundation, which is a nonprofit, oversees some $55 million that is to be allocated among worthy grantees.
In 2023, Penske and Eldridge Industries CEO Todd Boehly partnered to buy the Golden Globes and turned it into a for-profit enterprise. The HFPA was dissolved, though some members migrated to the new outfit including Bizio and Boghosian. Charitable work was transferred to the newly formed Golden Globe Foundation.
The HFPA members who didn’t pivot to Golden Globes 2.0 are now suing and attempting to unravel the 2023 transaction, claiming that they didn’t know Boehly’s Eldridge was a straw man for Penske until it was too late. (Oddly, the lawsuit doesn’t name Boehly as a defendant.)
Sources say Goeckner, who was once the general counsel of the HFPA in the pre-Penske/Boehly days, defied the old HFPA guard who have been amassing power in the new Golden Globes paradigm but would like to return to many of the old ways (i.e., all-expense-paid junkets, lavish gifts).
“He wouldn’t agree to move the money from the foundation back to the HFPA people,” says a source close to the situation. “He went to counsel. Counsel said, ‘You can’t do that because it violates Attorney General rules and bylaws for nonprofits and all that stuff.’ And so he followed the advice of counsel, and then they fired him.”
A spokesperson for Penske Media declined comment on the Goeckner matter. But in a telling sign, Goeckner’s landing page on the Golden Globes Foundation’s website is empty and he is no longer listed on the leadership page.
Boghosian, who appears to have attended that bizarre “Digger” event on the Warner Bros. lot we recently told you about, posted about being elected as the new president on Instagram, writing, “I’m honored to share that I have been elected President of the Golden Globe Foundation.”
Ultimately, Goeckner’s ouster could make for some awkward legal strategy given that he and Penske are on the same side of the legal battle being waged by the former HFPA members. While Latham & Watkins is representing Penske and PMC (to the tune of $5 million, we hear), Goeckner is shopping for his own counsel. Goeckner declined comment.
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