UNITED STATES. New York: In a civil trial in New York, actor Kevin Spacey testified to deny sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl at a house party in 1986.
Anthony Rapp, a 50-year-old actor best known for his part in Star Trek: Discovery, filed a complaint against Spacey in November 2020, alleging that the actor touched him inappropriately and made sexual advances toward him when Rapp was just 14 years old.
Rapp’s argument that Spacey intentionally caused him emotional anguish was rejected by the case’s judge, Lewis Kaplan, before Spacey, 63, ever entered his appearance in court on Monday.
In his lawsuit, Rapp said that when the two were at a party, Spacey entered a room where he was watching television, picked him up, carried him to a bed, and then laid down next to him.
Rapp testified in court earlier this month that he “felt frozen” during the alleged event until he was able to “wiggle his way” out.
Since Rapp’s allegations first surfaced in 2017, at the height of the #MeToo campaign against sexual abuse, Spacey has disappeared from television and theatres.
In the third week of his trial, Spacey said he was astonished when Rapp made his allegations public five years ago. He added, “I didn’t know how this could possibly be true,” adding that Rapp was too young for him to be interested in him sexually.
During Monday’s cross-examination, Spacey spoke about his own difficult upbringing, including his father, whom he described as a “neo-Nazi” and a “white supremacist”—terms he had never used in public before—who detested homosexual people and did not value his son’s interest in the theatre.
Spacey claimed that Rapp’s allegations, which were made public in a Buzzfeed piece at the end of 2017, left him feeling “shocked, afraid, and confused.”
After reading the article, Spacey, on the advice of his advisers, issued a statement in which he acknowledged being gay and apologised to Rapp for any inappropriate actions.
Spacey stated on Monday that he now regrets his apology. Spacey said, “I’ve learned a lesson, and that lesson is never to apologise for something you didn’t do. I completely regret my statement,” he continued.
The actor of “American Beauty” and “House of Cards,” wiping away his tears, declared that he would “never have done anything to hurt the LGBT community.”
The actor, Rapp, from the Broadway production of “Rent,” sued Spacey in November 2020 and demanded $40 million in damages. The Oscar-winning actor asserted that Rapp’s allegations are not true in response to his lawsuit for $40 million (£36 million) in damages.
Spacey won Oscars for his roles in “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty,” but his career was effectively over when more than 20 men accused him of sexual misconduct.
He was fired from the Netflix (NFLX.O) political drama “House of Cards,” and Christopher Plummer took over the part of J.Paul Getty. He appeared in “All the Money in the World” weeks before the intended 2017 release date.
Spacey, who has pleaded not guilty to five sex crime counts stemming from alleged assaults between 2005 and 2013, will go on trial in London in 2023.
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