Ellen Pompeo has issued a call to action to members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) and "White Hollywood" to help bring diversity to the body behind the Golden Globes.
HFPA officials have come under fire for the lack of diversity within the group which nominates and selects the winners of the annual awards show, after a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that while some of the 87 members of the organisation are people of colour, there are no black journalists among its ranks.
On Saturday, the eve of the 2021 ceremony, Grey's Anatomy star Pompeo took to Instagram to publish an open letter to her fellow "white" colleagues and HFPA members, insisting they need to take action into their own hands to ensure people of all backgrounds are more accurately represented.
Deeming the membership equity issue "unacceptable", Pompeo wrote: "This is a very solvable problem. This is Hollywood, we are master problem solvers."
She went on: "What we can not do... is leave this problem up to the black community and all our communities of color to fix. This is not their problem, it's ours."
Calling on others in the industry to "pull up, show up and get this issue resolved", Pompeo urged: "Let's show our black colleagues that we care and are willing to do the work to right the wrongs we have created".
"Now is not a time to be silent. We have a real action item here let's get it done (sic)," she rallied.
Pompeo is the latest celebrity to react to the HFPA controversy, following other remarks from stars like Ava DuVernay and Regina King. Kerry Washington, Mark Ruffalo, Amy Schumer, Sterling K. Brown, and Dakota Johnson are just some of the outspoken actors who have all made their feelings clear by sharing a new Time's Up post using the hashtag "#TimesUpGlobes".
Following the news of the Times' investigation, HFPA bosses insisted the lack of membership diversity is something they're "committed to addressing", although they provided no indication as to how they would tackle the problem.
