Kevin Spacey, a disgraced actor, denies allegations that he sexually assaulted Anthony Rapp when the latter was a teenager by saying they are “not true” on the witness stand during his New York trial.
Rapp is claiming damages of $40 million against two-time Oscar winner
Rapp, a member of “Star Trek: Discovery,” is suing Spacey for $40 million, alleging that the two-time Oscar winner caused him “mental distress” in 1986, when he was 14 and Spacey was 26.
Rapp, who is now 50 years old, claimed that Spacey attended a private party with him in a Manhattan apartment, but Spacey insisted he doesn’t remember doing so. Rapp’s argument that Spacey willfully caused him emotional distress was rejected by the case’s judge, Lewis Kaplan, before Spacey, 63, even showed up in court on Monday.
Rapp said in his lawsuit that Spacey entered the bedroom where he was watching TV when the two of them were at a party, picked him up, lifted him into a bed, and then laid down next to him. Speaking in front of the court earlier this month, Rapp described how he “felt frozen” throughout the alleged encounter before being able to “wiggle his way” out.
Spacey spoke about his own difficult family during Monday’s cross-examination
Spacey has been absent from screens and theatres since Rapp’s allegations first surfaced in 2017, during the height of the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse.
Spacey spoke about his own difficult family during Monday’s cross-examination, calling his father a “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi,” terms he had never used in public before, who despised homosexual people and did not share his son’s passion in the theatre.
Spacey said he was “shocked, horrified and puzzled” by Rapp’s allegations, which were made public in a Buzzfeed article in late 2017.
He made a public apology that he later stated he regretted
On the advice of his advisers, he made a public apology that he later stated he regretted. “I was being encouraged to apologize and I’ve learned a lesson, which is never apologizing for something you didn’t do,” he told the court.
He claimed that after publicly coming out as gay for the first time around the time of the claims, some claimed he was “trying to alter the subject, or attempting to distract.”
The actor of “American Beauty” and “House of Cards,” wiping away tears, declared that he would “never have done anything to hurt the gay community.”
In Britain, the “Usual Suspects” actor was accused of sexually assaulting three men between March 2005 and April 2013. He pled not guilty to those allegations, and in Massachusetts, sexual assault and indecent assault accusations against him were withdrawn in 2019.