Beverly Hills Hotel and Bel Air Hotel Boycott Strengthens
Hollywood
Reporters
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.”
The Hollywood Reporter 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 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.”
What began as a grassroots movement two weeks ago when designers Brian Atwood and Peter Som and Los Angeles boutique owner Cameron Silver asked their Instagram and Twitter followers to boycott the Dorchester Collection of hotels, to which the Beverly Hills Hotel belongs, has quickly gathered momentum, with prominent organizations dropping plans to hold dinners and fundraisers at the landmark hotel on Sunset Boulevard.
The Dorchester Collection is owned by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah through the Brunei Investment Agency. Last week, Brunei became the first East Asian country to adopt sharia law,
