In addition to the lack of racial diversity within the HFPA, the organization has long been faced with questions around the ethics of members’ voting practices. As Stacy Perman and Josh Rottenberg noted in another 2021 Times article about the HFPA, since at least 1995, HFPA members have “frequently been portrayed as celebrity obsessed freeloaders, exchanging votes for perks and undermining any notion of journalistic credibility.” In 2011, the HFPA’s longtime publicist Michael Russell filed a lawsuit alleging that members at that time accepted money, vacations, gifts, and other perks from producers and studios “in exchange for support or votes in nominating or awarding a particular film.” At the time, the HFPA countersued, saying the claims were “without a shred of evidence,” and the suit was settled in 2013.