Theatre Industry Had Concerns About Kevin Spacey For Years

Well, this certainly escalated quickly.

Over the weekend, Star Trek: Discovery‘s Anthony Rapp went on the record to reveal that when he was 14, Kevin Spacey made a sexual advance on him at a party that he was hosting. According to Rapp, the House of Cards star, who was drunk at the time, picked him up and laid him out on the bed, pressing himself on top of the fourteen-year-old until Rapp was able to “squirm his way out.” From there, nothing else happened, as he left the party at that point and the two haven’t spoken since.

Of course, the A-lister responded to the allegation, offering up a statement that drew criticism for conflating sexuality with inappropriate behavior, with the LGBT community, in particular, questioning the timing of his decision to come out as gay.

Here’s Spacey’s dubious response – in case you missed it.

I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.

This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life. I know that there are stories out there about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy. As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior.

Now, after receiving news that Netflix has pulled the plug on House of Cards in light of all this, some more disturbing reports about the actor are starting to surface. The first of which comes from Victoria Featherstone, artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. In a particularly damning statement, she admitted that people in the industry have been concerned about Spacey for a while now.

“I think that many people in the theatre and in the creative industries have been aware of many stories of many people over a lot of years, and Kevin Spacey would be one of the people that people have had concerns about, yes.”

What’s even more interesting, though, is that former WCVB-TV news anchor Heather Unruh accused the Oscar winner of assault two weeks ago, but it went largely unnoticed as at that time, most of the attention was focused on Harvey Weinstein. Taking to Twitter, she wrote:

‘The #weinsteinscandal has emboldened me … I was a Kevin Spacey fan until he assaulted a loved one. Time the dominoes fell’.

The allegations don’t end there, either, as the past 24 hours have seen a whole host of people come forward with stories about the House of Cards star, and while his camp has been keeping mostly quiet since making that initial apology to Rapp, we imagine that Kevin Spacey will speak up sooner rather than later. As always, watch this space for more.