Five years after MeToo, one of the most notorious chapters of the movement against the sexual abuse of powerful people in Hollywood continues its journey in court. The actor Kevin Spacey, 63, has again denied the accusations of sexual abuse made by the American author and singer Anthony Rapp, 50, according to which the protagonist of films such as American Beauty or the House of Cards series violent when Rapp was younger. The civil trial is taking place in a court in Manhattan (New York).
Rapp’s complaints precisely caused the cancellation of Spacey’s leading role in the popular Netflix series, as well as his forced coming out of the closet, after the actor had tried throughout his life to preserve his sexual orientation for fear of a “supremacist” father white” and “neo-Nazi” who did not like homosexuals or his son’s fondness for the theater, as he declared this Monday through tears in court.
Rapp claims compensation of 40 million dollars (a similar amount in euros, at the current exchange rate) for the “emotional anguish” caused by the abuse, allegedly occurring in 1986, when Spacey was 26 years old and the alleged victim, 14. Facts that the winner of two Oscars insists on qualifying as “not true”. “I don’t remember being with him at any private parties and I don’t have any memory of meeting him in an apartment,” Spacey said.
Rappa assures in his complaint that the famous actor invited him to his Manhattan apartment, lifted him up “like a boyfriend to a girlfriend to cross the threshold”, threw him on the bed and groped and touched him without his consent before lying on top of the.
Chain of accusations
Spacey chains court appearances for allegations of homosexual abuse. In May he was formally charged with four crimes allegedly committed between 2005 and 2013 against three British citizens in London and Gloucestershire (England). In July, at the preliminary hearing of the trial, which is scheduled to take place in the spring of 2023, Spacey again reiterated his innocence. He also pleaded not guilty to “compelling a person to engage in a non-consensual penetrative sexual act,” meaning rape.
The defense of the Oscar-winning actor has tried to dismantle the allegations of Rapp, an actor in Broadway musicals and protagonist of the television series Star Trek: Discovery, by stressing that he has incurred several contradictions about the dates and omitted details of what happened, such as the presence of a friend of his in the room in the first meeting he had with Spacey, according to him, the only one.
The shady protagonist of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil narrated what happened in another way, assuring that he invited Rapp and his friend John Borrowman to dinner and to his apartment, the other aspiring actor whose presence in Rapp’s room did not explicit. Once at his home, Spacey flirted with Barrowman — who was 19 at the time — but showed no interest in Rapp before the two guests left. “Anthony Rapp looked like a boy and John Barrowman looked like a man,” Spacey said in an account confirmed by a statement from Barrowman. Spacey scored a point on Monday by getting the judge to dismiss what happened as an “intentional act”, as Rapp’s defense claimed.
Open in channel
Unlike other previous trials, Spacey opened up before the Manhattan court, assuring that he had tried to keep his sexuality and intimate life private, after describing his father as a “white supremacist” and a “neo-Nazi”, who did not like homosexuals or his son’s interest in the theater. Never before, in the rosary of appearances since he was denounced for the first time in 2017, had the actor so openly exposed his intimacy.
Rapp denounced the alleged abuse that year in an interview in Buzzfeed magazine, an accusation that caused the actor a feeling of “shock, shock and confusion”, after which, advised by his image consultants, he presented a public apology to the ” having no idea where the events could have occurred. The actor claims to have regretted having made that excuse, for having been able to incriminate him even more. “I learned the lesson of apologizing for something you haven’t done,” he stressed Monday as he sobbed and wiped his tears with a tissue. So, he recalled, with the MeToo movement gaining momentum, “the [movie] industry was very nervous. There was a lot of fear in the air about who was going to be next.” That’s why,
The publication of the article forced him to publicly admit his sexual condition, a possibility that he had been weighing for more than a year, considering that his acting career was already sufficiently established (by then he had been awarded two Oscars, in 1996 and 2000). “I was accused of trying to change the subject, trying to divert attention, or confusing an accusation with being gay, which was never my intention,” he said, crying. “I would never have done anything to harm the gay community. I am deeply sorry,” he apologized. His resistance to coming out of the closet was criticized by said community while the complaints definitively derailed his career.
