Kevin Spacey Makes Rare Public Appearance In Court
Unlike some of the famous actors and entertainers accused of misconduct as part of the #MeToo movement, Kevin Spacey has kept a mostly low profile, with the exception of a bizarre video he tweeted last December in which he appeared to reprise his House of Cards character.
But Spacey, per Page Six, made a rare appearance in public Monday when he appeared in court in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in connection with the charges that he sexually assaulted a teenaged boy in 2016. Spacey had not been expected to appear in court, as his appearance had been waived. Spacey last appeared in court for arraignment in the same case last January.
Spacey is accused of “groping” an 18-year-old busboy in July of 2016, and also plying him with drinks, per Page Six. The victim in the case is the son of Heather Unruh, a former news anchor in the Boston area, who announced the accusation in a press conference in November of 2017, per The Hollywood Reporter.
The 59-year-old actor, who won a pair of Academy Awards in the 1990s, had worked steadily as a movie actor for nearly 25 years and played the starring role on House of Cards, which became the first major prestige TV series to debut on Netflix in 2013.
But Spacey’s acting career essentially came to an end in late 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp came forward to accuse Spacey of having made a sexual advance toward him in 1986, when Spacey was 26 and Rapp was only 14, per The Hollywood Reporter. Spacey issued a statement in which he said that while he didn’t remember the encounter, he was apologizing to Rapp for “what would have been deeply inappropriate behavior.”
Kevin Spacey makes surprise appearance at groping case hearing https://t.co/SiUZphCgd5 pic.twitter.com/dcT1CJ7qXq
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) June 3, 2019
In the same statement Spacey, who had long refused to answer questions about his sexuality, said that while he had been in relationships with both men and women, “I choose now to live as a gay man.” The statement was heavily criticized by many in the gay community. Actor and comedian Billy Eichner, who had made jokes about Spacey on his show Difficult People, called Spacey’s statement “truly disgusting, irresponsible and dangerous” on Twitter.
Rapp’s accusation was followed by several others of misconduct against the actor, although the Nantucket accusation was the only one that resulted in criminal charges.
The accusations led to Spacey’s departure from House of Cards; he was also dropped from the 2017 movie All the Money in the World, in which Spacey’s scenes were all cut from the film and reshot with Christopher Plummer in his place.
Spacey has mostly been a recluse since the Rapp story broke, although he did release a bizarre three-minute video called “Let Me Be Frank” to his YouTube channel last December, in which he appeared in character as his House of Cards politician and cryptically addressed the camera.
