LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar-winning actor George Clooney has called for a boycott of luxury hotels, including the Beverly Hills Hotel, owned by Brunei because of the Southeast Asian nation’s plans to impose the death penalty for people having gay sex or committing adultery.
Brunei, a former British protectorate, has stated it will roll out new Sharia law punishments from April 3 that include death by stoning or whipping for sodomy, adultery, or rape.
In an opinion piece for Hollywood entertainment website Deadline.com on Thursday, Clooney wrote that “every single time we stay at or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery.”
The Brunei Investment Company owns nine hotels in the United States and Europe, including the Beverly Hills Hotel, The Dorchester in London, and the Plaza Athenee in Paris.
Clooney, who is also a political activist and one of the most influential names in Hollywood, said he had stayed at many of the hotels himself “because I hadn’t done my homework and didn’t know who owned them.”