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Fuller details of the new allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour made against Hollywood star Kevin Spacey have emerged, as the claims of ten men were broadcast on Channel 4.
Speaking to camera for the docuseries Spacey Unmasked, the men waived their right to anonymity to accuse Spacey of various allegedly inappropriate incidents.
Their accounts stem from men in the UK and the USA, and stretch from the 1970s, years before he found fame, to the 2010s at the peak of his success. Spacey denies the allegations and denies all wrongdoing.
It comes less than a year after he was acquitted by a jury of nine sexual offences in an English court, and two years after a civil trial in the US found in his favour, throwing out the claims of fellow actor Anthony Rapp, who alleged sexual misconduct against Spacey in 2017.
On Friday, in an online interview, Spacey admitted to “clumsy” and “inappropriate” behaviour with men, adding, “but it wasn’t illegal, and it’s never been alleged to be illegal”. Lawyers representing Spacey called the new claims “false”.
“I take full responsibility for my past behaviour and my actions,” Spacey told former GB News presenter Dan Wootton in their online discussion about the allegations. “But I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologise to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me,” he said.
“I’ve clearly hooked up with some men who thought they might get ahead in their careers by having a relationship with me… But there was no conversation with me, it was all part of their plan, a plan that was always destined to fail, because I wasn’t in on the deal.”
The acclaimed star of House of Cards, American Beauty and the Usual Suspects was one of the most powerful, celebrated actors in the world when most of the alleged incidents in the Channel 4 series are claimed to have occurred. His accusers were young actors, theatre employees and students at the time. In a statement posted to X last Friday, Spacey criticised Channel 4 for giving him 7 days to respond to the range of allegations, which he deemed insufficient.
None of the men were part of last year’s criminal trial in London’s Southwark Crown Court, in which Spacey was cleared on all counts.
Some alleged he pursued them despite being in a position of power. Several of the men said they believed or hoped he wanted to help them with their careers. Many of the men described an encounter happening so quickly that they were stunned, seemingly unable or unsure how to respond — or even how to comprehend it.
Some of the young actors hoping to make it in the entertainment industry believed that if they complained, their careers could be seriously damaged.
The first man to come forward for the documentary, Ruari Cannon, spoke exclusively to i last week. The former actor, now 32, alleges that Spacey intimately groped him at the press night party for a play Mr Cannon was performing in at the Old Vic in 2013. At the time, Cannon was 21. Spacey was artistic director of the theatre from 2004-2015. He denies the allegation.
As Mr Cannon arrived at London’s Savoy hotel for the post-show party, he spotted Spacey and approached him to thank him for a gift Spacey had given him: “He pulled me in very close with his right hand, and sort of turned me 45 degrees.” Ruari then alleged: “He put his left hand down by my bum, and he stuck his middle finger as far up me as possible.” Ruari was wearing a suit and claimed: “He took up the recess material and just tried to go up, through my boxers up inside me.” According to Mr Cannon Spacey pulled him in closer and whispered, “Don’t worry about it,” before striding away.
Stunned, Ruari didn’t know what to do. “You just want someone to help you,” he said.
When approached for comment about the alleged incident, Spacey did not provide i with a response. However, he later told former GB News presenter Dan Wootton, “This makes no sense,” and that Mr Cannon’s claims are “ridiculous and it never happened”. Asked how the alleged incident could have occurred without a photographer capturing it, he said, “I have no idea.”
He questioned the validity of Mr Cannon’s claims about the value of the gift. “There was a little story in the West End where he had these kind of wonderful, inexpensive opening night gifts that were all related to the theatre. But I’m honoured that this person felt he was getting an extravagant [gift].”
Mr Cannon initially spoke to i’s reporter, who co-produced the Channel 4 series, in 2017 and described the alleged incident then, but at the time said he was too afraid of the impact on his career to go on the record.
Most of the ten men speaking out for the first episode of the documentary series, however, met Spacey in Los Angeles or New York.
In 2013, Daniel thought that clinching a small speaking part on season four of House of Cards, having previously been a non-speaking background actor, could be a big break for him. He was 23, and appreciated how funny the star could be during the production. He was cast as part of the security detail for Spacey’s politician character, Frank Underwood.
But moments after performing a scene together, he said they walked round to the other side of the set, away from the cameras. “I felt something tickle me just right below my zipper,” he claimed, explaining that he looked down, “and I see it’s his finger, you know – his hand touched my penis.” He alleged, “I was inappropriately touched on set at work.” Despite being shocked, he said, they immediately had to return to set to retake the scene.
What happened “wasn’t criminal behaviour”, he said but he thought it was “disgusting behaviour”. Spacey began emailing him after that day, wanting to meet up with him, he said. Daniel would reply but never arranged a meeting.
In his interview with Wootton, Spacey said, “Well, I think I know who this is because I recently found like 27 emails between us and so I agree we had a friendly relationship. That is true, and it’s possible I engaged in some childish behaviour like that at times, yes. But would it have been in a sexual context? No, absolutely not. And then he now refers to it as disgusting is probably a little unfair, considering I was always with him in group settings.” Spacey characterised the alleged encounter as an example of the type of “horseplay” regularly featuring on the set of the hit show. “I wasn’t the only one engaging in horseplay. But I accept his comments based on the very little context that I have here.”
In 2022, a judge ruled that Spacey must pay $31million to Media Rights Capital (MRC), the production company that made House of Cards, after the show was ended early, following allegations in the media against the actor in 2017. As part of the lawsuit, multiple claims of harassment on the set of the political drama were made against Spacey, which were first accepted by an adjudicator in 2021.
The adjudicator ruled: “The witnesses each testified to intentional touching of a sexual nature that was unwelcome and that made them feel uncomfortable. That is enough to demonstrate a violation of the harassment policy.” The judgment concludes: “The Arbitrator finds that the allegations against Spacey are true”. The damages were since reduced to $1m. Spacey has said he will be appealing further.
Not all the men who spoken out in the Channel 4 films were working alongside Spacey when they felt he behaved inappropriately.
Scott, a former marine, was 27 and just starting out as an actor when he said he met Spacey in the Viper Room, an LA club, in 1998. “I was starstruck,” he said. Spacey, who had already won an Oscar by then, expressed interest in seeing Scott’s headshots and resume, said Scott.
Later that night they were both at a gathering in a Hollywood Hills home. Spacey, he said, suggested they go and investigate the cinema room. Alone in the home theatre, he claimed Spacey asked for a hug, and when Scott agreed, Spacey “gets me in this bear grip” and while rubbing his stubbly face into Scott’s neck starts “grinding into me, like humping me”. Scott said pushed him off. Spacey had already met Scott’s girlfriend at this point, he added.
After the alleged incident, Scott had a physical anxiety response, he said. “My whole body reacted in this crazy way,” he said. It was “like a panic attack”. He felt shaky on his feet. His heart was racing with an “adrenaline dump”. The next day, he said, Spacey rang him wanting to meet up. Hoping that this might lead to a useful contact for his career, Scott agreed. It was that day that they went to see Saving Private Ryan in a cinema in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. Spacey, he claimed, began pleasuring himself next to him as graphic scenes of the invasion of Normandy were playing. “He reaches over and grabs my hand and tries to get me to help out,” alleged Scott. Scott said he pulled his hand away before getting up to use the bathroom, to escape the situation.
When the allegation was put to Spacey by Wootton, the actor replied, “So the reason he is shocked is that there’s horrific war footage playing? Well, can I just say that this is just one of those stories when you hear it, outside of the context of being accused, you know, if it weren’t in that context, I would laugh, I would think this is an episode of Seinfeld. So I’m having a hard time taking it seriously as it’s just ludicrous. The truth is I’ve never even seen [Saving] Private Ryan. So I’m sorry that Matt Damon has been dragged into this mess.”
Spacey then posted on X what appeared to be an email from this accuser in 2011, hoping for work. “If this guy was so turned off by everything he claims I did, why is he still chasing me 13 years later?” Spacey wrote.
Jesse was a 23-year-old intern on the Big Kahuna, a 1999 film starring Spacey. He had only recently moved to New York when he secured the gig.
At first, Spacey would bring Jesse up to his dressing room to rehearse lines, he said. By the following week, still enlisting the intern to help him rehearse, Jesse alleged, “he would complain about a sore shoulder and want me to rub his shoulder. And then he’d be lying on his couch and he’d try to put my hand on his crotch.” Jesse would move his hand away, he said, but would comply with his requests to rub his shoulders.
Spacey told Wootton: “Well, I have to say that this guy’s story strikes me as much more in keeping with something that I might have done… I can accept the plausibility of this so far.”
On the last day of shooting, Jesse said they were drinking in a bar when Spacey, he claimed, asked if he wanted to smoke some cannabis, and followed him into the men’s toilets: “He just whips out his dick, shoves his tongue in my mouth.” The alleged incident came to an abrupt end when someone started banging on the bathroom door, he said.
Spacey said he did not recall this particular incident, “But I do recall many times in my life when I’ve smoked a joint in a bathroom stall and removed my Johnson [penis] from my trousers and my tongue in some other person’s mouth. That he’s suggesting I did all three of these at one go does make me wonder who was holding what.”
Travis met Spacey on the red carpet of the Golden Globes awards in 2005. Spacey invited him to a party to be held in his hotel room that night. Travis hoped Spacey might become a much-needed mentor to him in this early stage of his career. But when he arrived later that night, he said, there was no one else there: just the two of them. After much talking, Travis said it was time for him to go home. Spacey told him to stay, and to take off his shirt, Travis said.
“It wasn’t a fear that physically I was going to be raped. It was more of a fear that if I don’t leave here in a good light, this could cost me my career,” he said, claiming, “He put his arm against the door. And he locked it.” Spacey denies that claim. Travis said he felt faced with a difficult situation, unsure how to respond, and with Spacey rubbing his hands down his shoulders, he said, he grabbed Spacey’s head and planted a brief kiss on his lips before pushing him back and darting out the room. “I got into the elevator and I immediately pulled out my phone and I called my mum,” he said.
Spacey denied ever locking a door in such a scenario. “I have been a promiscuous flirt. I’ve been annoying at times. Definitely persistent. But I have never, not once, blocked someone from leaving a room or locked the door. Never.”
“What I’m not sure about is why he says he accepted the invitation back to my hotel room on the belief that I was suddenly his mentor,” said Spacey. “I mean, it would have been like midnight or later. It’s the Golden Globes, there’s lots of drinking, and apparently some weed. I’ll be curious to see if he clarifies this in the documentary as to why he thought me asking him a few questions barred me from inviting him back to my hotel room.”
Not all the allegations involve the misuse of power or disparity of status, of the kind that has become common since the #MeToo movement. In his early twenties, as Spacey began to move into professional acting with his first forays into theatre in New York, another man alleges an incident took place.
Andy, now 69, says in 1981 when he was 27, while working at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Spacey walked into his office. They had never spoken before. Spacey, who had a minor part in a Shakespeare play, approached him wearing jeans tight enough to show he had an erection, claimed Andy. Without saying a word, Spacey pulled him up so that he lost his balance, he said. “He was on top of me and he’s pressing against me.”
Andy tried to free himself. “I’m pushing him off saying, ‘Get off me, this is my office.’ And he persisted.” He claimed the experience was, “completely out of the blue and completely wordless — angry,” he said. “There was no eye contact there. There was nothing but force, physical force.” Andy said he was then able to push Spacey off, whereupon the actor stormed out. “I was shaking,” he said. “I never felt I could tell or should tell anybody. It was something I needed to bury.”
Spacey dismissed Andy’s account in his interview with Wootton, claiming the man has changed certain details of his story since he made similar allegations in a civil lawsuit.
“Oh, well, I see that he’s already changed his story from the last time he told them because in a courtroom, he told the jury that… I picked him up in the air with one hand as if I was like Superman. And now he’s saying I grabbed him and pushed him onto his back, which I can only assume was because he was called out about it in a court case.”
Spacey questioned why Andy said – according to Channel 4 – the actor had been wearing trousers when in the trial Andy said it was jeans. “Also just know this; when this guy was asked how he knew who I was, [he] testified he’d seen my picture in a programme for a play, Henry IV… and he testified that he’d never met me or seen me before in person. So my face in this programme was the only possible way to identify me. And at trial, I happen to have it here, we produced the programme, which is here, in which there are no pictures of any of the actors at all. There are some pitches in the back of previous productions. But that’s what he said. There was no photo.”
Four decades after the alleged incident, in 2022, Andy testified in support of the civil trial brought by Anthony Rapp, the first man to make public accusations of sexual impropriety against Spacey in October 2017. The judge dismissed Rapp’s claims of assault and emotional distress, and the jury found that Spacey was also not liable for the claim of battery.
Regarding the Channel 4 documentary, one of the producers, Dorothy Byrne, told the Observer: “I’ve made a lot of programmes over decades about women suffering inappropriate behaviour, so this has been a very interesting project to work on. I do feel that it’s a #MeToo moment for men. Lots of things that were done to women 50 years ago are still being done to men, many of whom feel that they have to put up with it.”
Spacey, who says he accepts responsibility for his “past behaviour and actions”, added he “cannot and will not take responsibility or apologise to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me.”
