Kevin Spacey has apologised after fellow actor Anthony Rapp said the House of Cards star attempted to molest him as a teenager at a party in 1986.
Stage and screen actor Rapp, who was in the original Broadway cast of Rent and is currently starring in Star Trek: Discovery, said the incident took place when he was a 14-year-old child actor starring in a Broadway play.
Rapp told Buzzfeed that he first met Spacey at an after-show event, and the then-26-year-old took invited him to a party at his Manhattan apartment later that week.
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Arriving at the party alone, the teenager “was quickly kind of bored” and headed into a bedroom to watch TV alone.
Some time after midnight, when the other guests had left, Spacey came into the room. “My impression when he came in the room was that he was drunk,” Rapp told Buzzfeed.
“He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold,” he said. “But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me.” Rapp said he was able to push Spacey away and leave the apartment.
Now 46, Rapp told Buzzfeed that his stomach still “churns” when he sees Spacey.
Referring to the outpouring of sexual assault allegations surfacing against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and other Hollywood figures, Rapp said he chose to come forward because he was “feeling really awake to the moment that we're living in”.
“I'm hopeful that this can make a difference,” he added.
After Rapp’s story went public, Spacey penned a response in which he said did not recall the incident, but was “beyond horrified” to hear his account.
The 58-year-old offered Rapp a “sincere apology” for what he said would have been “deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour”.
The two-time Oscar winner used his apology to end long-standing speculation about his sexuality, saying Rapp’s allegation “has encouraged me to address other things about my life”.
“I know that there are other stories out there about me and that some have been fuelled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy," he said.
“I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I now choose to live life as a gay man.”
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