KEVIN SPACEY ADDRESSES FRESH SEXUAL HARASSMENT ALLEGATIONS: "I'VE GOT NOTHING LEFT TO HIDE"

Kevin Spacey has fired back at new allegations of sexual harassment and assault set to be heard as part of a Channel 4 documentary, Spacey Unmasked, set to premiere in the U.K. on May 6-7.

"I've got nothing left to hide," Spacey told former U.K. broadcaster Dan Wootton during a 2 hour, 20 minutes interview entitled Kevin Spacey: Right of Reply, which streamed on X (formerly Twitter).

Having seen off earlier allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior in civil and criminal court cases in the U.S. and the UK, Spacey said he refused to stand by and stay silent as fresh allegations were made in the Channel 4 documentary. "I can't go through this again, allowing myself to be basically attacked without defending myself as well," he told Wootton.

While accepting that he may have flirted or hooked up with fellow actors in the past, Spacey denied that he had ever done anything illegal. "I take full responsibility for my past behavior and my actions, but I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologize to anyone who's made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me," Spacey said.

Spacey added that Channel 4 giving him only a week to respond to accusations in the documentary reminded him of having to respond to a 2017 BuzzFeed News story that first went public with sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar winner. Spacey said it took him a year to find the evidence to disprove the allegations against him from Anthony Rapp as part of the initial story that derailed his Hollywood career.

In October 2022, a jury concluded Spacey did not molest Rapp while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in the 1980s. Spacey told Wootton that having to respond to the Buzzfeed News story allegations quickly did not permit him time to include a firm denial. "The point is what was alleged to have happened, something 30 years earlier, I had no time to investigate any of it. So I didn't deny that. But what I did say was I don't remember, which at that point was true because it didn't happen," he said.

The impact of the BuzzFeed story was compounded, Spacey conceded, by his using a statement to say he had no recollections of an incident involving Rapp to also announce publicly for the first time he was gay. "It was terribly timed and thought out," the actor said of his emerging from the closet, despite long conversations with Evan Lowenstein, Spacey's manager, over how to safely do so.

"After being so fiercely closeted for so long, I had no idea what was on the other side of that door," Spacey said. But while failing in the past to fully deny what he regarded as false accusations of sexual advances, Spacey said he was prepared to answer for past inappropriate behavior he had done.

"Absolutely, and I have. For the past 10 years, I have reached out to many people to make amends," Spacey admitted, without specifying to whom he had apologized, adding that he never felt the need to go public with his apologies for past behavior.

"It's meaningless and completely impersonal to apologize on Oprah or Anderson Cooper for something you might have done to someone else," he said, insisting during the online interview that over the last seven years he had had ample time to rake over his past. He also addressed the question of power imbalances in Hollywood that allowed him to work in movies and TV series as whispers and speculation over his sexuality and inappropriate behavior hung in the air.

"If I was really this monster, and everyone knew about it, then why aren't people asking questions about the networks and the studios who were all too happy to monetize off of me, while allowing me to roam the streets freely? I mean, why didn't the studios do anything? Why don't people stand on the red carpets with me and say how great it was to work with me? I mean, do you really think that I had more power than them?" Spacey questioned.  

He also admitted to flirting and hooking up with fellow actors. "But I was not employing them. I was not their boss," he insisted. Despite that criticism, Spacey insisted he was ready to come clean with his past.

"I wanted to ensure that by the time I did speak out, now publicly, I could be confident that I've taken responsibility for the mistakes I've made. … That said, nobody in Hollywood has ever presented a path back for me," Spacey argued. "There's no coursework material I've been given to check, nothing. It seems that some are content with just canceling me forever. It's a life sentence."

2024-05-03T22:30:06Z dg43tfdfdgfd