Kevin Spacey Denies Anthony Rapp Assault, Says ‘Neo-Nazi’ Father Kept Him From Coming Out as Gay – Yahoo Entertainment
Kevin Spacey took the stand Monday before a New York jury and flatly denied making a sexual pass at Anthony Rapp when the “Rent” actor was 14 – then went on to detail how his upbringing at the hands of a “white supremacist and neo-Nazi father” prevented him from coming out as gay.
Earlier in the day, Spacey won a partial dismissal of the case against him when U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan threw out Rapp’s claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The judge ruled those claims duplicated Rapp’s assault and battery claim, which now stands as the only remaining accusation in his $40 million civil lawsuit against Spacey.
Rapp came forward in 2017 to claim Spacey lifted him onto a bed and pressed his full weight on top of him as a sexual advance after a party in 1986, when the “Star Trek” actor was 14 and Spacey was 26. Spacey was asked directly about the accusations, the Associated Press reported.
“They are not true,” Spacey said.
Spacey for the first time offered an alternative timeline Monday, testifying that he had met Rapp and 19-year-old John Barrowman, also an actor, after performing on Broadway. He said he took them both out to dinner and a nightclub and finally to his apartment, where he flirted with Barrowman — who was 19 at the time — but showed no interest in Rapp.
Spacey’s testimony concurs with a sworn deposition by Barrowman, which defense lawyers pointed out last week presents a “problem” for Rapp’s version of events. Rapp says he returned to Spacey’s apartment some days later, and that the assault happened then.
Spacey was then asked whether he had kept his personal life private over the course of his career in the public eye.
“I work in a very complicated family dynamic,” Spacey responded. “My father was a white supremacist and neo-Nazi. It meant that my siblings and I were forced to listen to hours and hours of my father lecturing us about his beliefs.”
Spacey said the experience made him hate “bigotry and intolerance,” and that “everything about what was happening in that house was something I had to keep to myself. We never, ever, talked about it. I have never talked about these things publicly ever.”
Spacey said as his interest in theater grew, his father “used to yell at me at the idea that I might be gay.”
When Rapp first made his accusations in 2017, Spacey apologized and, for the first time in his career, came out as gay.
Also Read:
5 Years After #MeToo, 4 Hollywood Men Face Trials This Month, From Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey