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Sharon Stone is once again vocalizing her support of Kevin Spacey making his return to Hollywood following a string of sexual abuse allegations.
In May, Stone was among several Hollywood stars who called for Spacey to be allowed to resume his career as an actor, telling The Telegraph that she “can’t wait to see Kevin back at work. He is a genius.”
She has since faced backlash for her comments. However, she stands firm behind her original assessment, arguing that “after being in therapy for seven years, not being allowed to work, losing his home, losing everything, he should be allowed to come back”.
“He’s reached out to everybody he’s offended and said he’s sorry,” Stone said in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Kevin grabbed people by their genitals. Many people. But nobody [has publicly said] he’s raped them or forced them into a sexual encounter.”
The Basic Instinct star continued: “But there’s so much hatred for him because in his case it was man-on-man. That’s why he’s not allowed to come back. Because he offended men.”
“But can I tell you how many men have grabbed my genitals in my lifetime? A lot more than Kevin Spacey has grabbed men’s genitals. And none of them has ever apologized to me,” Stone added.
Spacey, 64, was last year acquitted of a number of sexual offenses alleged by four men in the UK to have taken place between 2001 and 2013.
During the trial, each of Spacey’s accusers gave evidence, describing him as a “vile sexual predator”, “slippery” and “atrocious, despicable, disgusting”.
The two-time Oscar winner denied all of the accusations, calling them “madness” and a “stab in the back”. Spacey was cleared on all nine charges, including sexual assault.
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The Hollywood A-lister first faced accusations of misconduct in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that Spacey tried “to seduce” him when he was just 14. In 2022, a New York jury dismissed Rapp’s claims of sexual abuse.
Once one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, Spacey was subsequently dropped from his leading role on Netflix’s House of Cards following Rapp’s allegations.
Most recently, he faced another fresh set of allegations of inappropriate behavior from men who featured in a two-part Channel 4 documentary Spacey Unmasked.
Spacey issued a fiery statement decrying the “desperate” documentary. “I will not sit back and be attacked,” he tweeted at the time.
Other celebrities to support Spacey’s career comeback include Liam Neeson and Stephen Fry, with the former telling The Telegraph: “I was deeply saddened to learn of these accusations against him. Kevin is a good man and a man of character. He’s sensitive, articulate and non-judgmental, with a terrific sense of humor. He is also one of our finest artists in the theatre and on camera. Personally speaking, our industry needs him and misses him greatly.”
Fry, meanwhile, admitted that Spacey had been “both ‘clumsy’ and ‘inappropriate’ on many occasions” but that to “bracket him with the likes of Harvey Weinstein” and “to continue to harass and hound him, to devote a whole documentary to accusations that simply do not add up to crimes… how can that be considered proportionate and justified?”
