Russell Crowe Rejects Brunei Boycott
“Business really began dropping off six weeks ago,” one employee told me. “We knew it was coming. But then it exploded with the celebrity boycott.” Much of the 650-person staff has been told to stay home, he said. There is now a hiring freeze, and workers who were on the verge of promotions have been stalled. The cancellation of high-profile events — such as the Children’s Defense Fund gala hosted by J.J. Abrams, the Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment breakfast, and the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Night Before the Oscars party, among others — has already cost the establishment nearly $2 million. “The hotel is going to pay $95,000 in total to the people who would have worked at those events,” the employee told me. “Others have essentially been laid off.”The above-linked writer notes that the Sultan of Brunei is worth over $20B and his hotels "could sit empty for years and he wouldn't notice."
Labels: boycotts, Brunei, Russell Crowe, Sharia Law
