NBC Says Won't Air Golden Globes Award Show In 2022

After years of rumbling criticism over its lack of diversity and how it doles out awards, the group behind Hollywood's Golden Globes is now fully engulfed in crisis.

The NBC Network announced on Monday that it will not air the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA)'s Golden Globes award show in 2022. The irreverent, boozy show, where awards are given out for both movies and television, has aired on NBC since 1996. The awards have gained in prominence in recent years and are seen as a harbinger of the Academy Awards.

Separately on Monday, actor Tom Cruise announced he is giving back the three Golden Globes he has won during his career.

The moves follow decisions in recent days by some of the major players in Hollywood filmmaking -- Warner Bros. Studios, Netflix and Amazon Studios -- to all cut ties with the HFPA.

At issue is the HFPA's lack of diversity among its 87 members, specifically that there are no black members.

An investigation by the L.A. Times in February uncovered financial and ethical lapses in the HFPA; and some of Hollywood's most powerful publicists have claimed their celebrity clients were treated to racist and sexist behavior by HFPA members and staff, and were also denied the ability to promote their work on projects that were minority-driven.

The HFPA vowed to make changes after the Times' investigation, but few in Hollywood are convinced that the group has met its own May 6th deadline for "transformational change", as the group had promised.

A statement from NBC on Monday echoed earlier statements from the movie studios: that the 78-year-old HFPA, while committed to making changes, had not been making enough changes, fast enough.

The Times' investigation portrayed the HFPA as unserious group, mostly coddled by Hollywood for years, and mostly entrenched in its view that it didn't need to change and only felt victimized by outside forces.

The HFPA already had a long-held reputation that its small number of 87 members were easily influenced by awards-seekers, compared to the 10,000-strong membership of the group that votes on the Academy Awards.

Shonda Rhimes, the Black creator behind such TV hits "Grey's Anatomy", "How to Get Away With Murder" and "Scandal", accused the HFPA of treating her shabbily and tweeted: "This is why HFPA's house is on fire. They lit the flame w/ their own ignorance." -