Kevin Spacey broke down in tears on Thursday as he said his “world exploded” when sexual abuse allegations against him first emerged in 2017, saying: “I lost everything.”
The two-time Oscar winner tried to compose himself as he told jurors his acting work dried up and his fortune dwindled in the face of mounting legal bills.
Wiping away tears, the Hollywood star told Southwark crown court: “There was a rush to judgment, and before the first question was asked or answered I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days.”
Spacey, 63, denies charges including sexual assault and indecent assault against four men in their 20s and 30s, between 2001 and 2013.
Wearing a charcoal grey suit and a blue tie, he appeared in the witness box on Thursday as he gave evidence in his month-long trial. His barrister, Patrick Gibbs KC, asked him about an October 2017 BuzzFeed article that featured an allegation by the American actor Anthony Rapp, who accused Spacey of an unwanted sexual advance. The allegation was found not proven in a civil court in October last year.
Spacey told the packed courtroom: “My world exploded.” He said there were further rumours in the wake of the article and that his sponsorship deals and contracts were “abandoned”.
“With a few exceptions over the last five, six years, I have not been able to work,” he said. “I’ve had no money coming in and I’ve had a lot of legal bills and things to fight against, and I haven’t paid it all off so I still owe money.”
Spacey also addressed the public statement he made in the wake of the allegation in which he came out as gay. “Members of the LGTBQ+ community were upset because I came out while I was responding to an accusation … now I understand why it was read that way, but I hadn’t put those two things together,” he said.
Spacey began his testimony by detailing his career and how he had gone to acting school with Val Kilmer. He recounted showbiz anecdotes including buying Dame Judi Dench a ping-pong table and purchasing “the most expensive Mini Cooper ever” at a charity auction hosted by Elton John.
But he appeared emotional as he described feeling “crushed” when he found out that a man he had been “intimate” with had accused him of assaulting him in the early 2000s.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has claimed that on one occasion he was driving the House of Cards star to a party hosted by Elton John when Spacey grabbed his penis with such force that he almost crashed.
Spacey denied assaulting the man on the way to the singer’s white tie and tiara ball, saying: “No, I was not on a suicide mission in any of those years.”
Responding to the allegations made by the complainant, Spacey told jurors: “I’m a flirt, I’m a big flirt.” He described the man as “charming and funny” before adding: “Slowly over time [the relationship] became somewhat sexual but we never had sex together because he made it clear he didn’t want to go any further, and that happens at times, and you respect how far someone wants to go or not go.
“It did not happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way. It was gentle and it was touching and in my mind romantic.”
Gibbs asked Spacey how he had felt when he found out about the man’s allegations. “I was crushed. I never thought that [the man] I knew would 20 years later stab me in the back,” he said.
Spacey said claims made by a second man who he allegedly met in a West End theatre in the mid-2000s were “madness”. The man has accused Spacey of grabbing his crotch “like a cobra” after making a “barrage of vile comments”.
Spacey denied the attack, saying: “I never said any of the things that he claims I said to him, and wouldn’t, and never have to anyone in my life.”
He also denied claims by an aspiring actor who accused Spacey of being a “vile sexual predator” who drugged him before performing a sex act on him while he was asleep in 2008.
Spacey said the pair had shared “an intimate” moment before the man became “suddenly awkward and fumbling”. “I believe I performed oral sex on him,” Spacey said. “I remember the end of the evening and that was what stuck in my mind because we had a consensual and, I believe, a very nice and lovely evening.”
Addressing sexual grab claims made by a fourth complainant he had met in a pub near Oxford in the early 2010s, Spacey said he had “primarily” no issue with the man’s testimony. “I made a pass and I’m only happy that he testified that the moment he told me he was not interested, I stopped,” he said.
Spacey denies 12 charges, which include seven of sexual assault, three of indecent assault, one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
The trial continues.
