Kevin Spacey has fired back at new allegations of sexual harassment and assault set to be heard as part of a Channel 4 documentary, Spacey Unmasked, premiering in the U.K. on May 6-7.
“I’ve got nothing left to hide,” Spacey told former U.K. broadcaster Dan Wootton during a two hour, 20 minutes interview titled Kevin Spacey: Right of Reply, which streamed on X (formerly Twitter).
Having seen off earlier allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior in civil and criminal court cases in the U.S. and the U.K., Spacey said he refused to stand by and stay silent as fresh allegations were made in the Channel 4 documentary. “I can’t go through this again, allowing myself to be basically attacked without defending myself as well,” he told Wootton.
While accepting that he may have flirted with or hooked up with fellow actors in the past, Spacey denied that he had ever done anything illegal. “I take full responsibility for my past behavior and my actions, but I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologize to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me,” Spacey said.
He added: “I’ve been promiscuous, flirty. I’ve been annoying at times. Definitely persistent. But I have never, not once, blocked someone from leaving a room or locked the door. I cried once to try to keep somebody in the room. But I’ve never put my arm in front of the door or locked it,” Spacey said at one point.
The actor said having his Hollywood career cut short had hit him financially. “I’ve lost my house. I’ve got one foot in bankruptcy,” he said, adding that returning to work in the past year on a trio of indie projects had been both welcomed and challenging.
“It does feel very special, a very, very valuable time because, you know, acting is really lying for a profession. You’re trying to convince an audience that you’re somebody else, which is probably why it’s easy for me and why many think I’m good at it,” Spacey said at one point.
He added: “The reality is that I did only ever have one dream in life and that was to be an actor. And while I most certainly did love the attention I got, the truth is, I would be quite content to never show up at another award show ever again.”
But Spacey time and again insisted he had to fight back against fresh allegations, otherwise he would have no hope of resurrecting his Hollywood career. “I would really love to be above all this and not have to talk about it, go back to my daily life, get back to work, but I have finally realized that, if I don’t fight back, this will never end!” he said during one emotional high point.
As he pushed back at the Channel 4 documentary, Spacey said the U.K. broadcaster giving him only a week to respond to accusations in the documentary reminded him of having to respond to the 2017 BuzzFeed News story that first went public with sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar winner. Spacey said it took him a year to find the evidence to disprove the allegations against him from Anthony Rapp after the initial story that derailed his Hollywood career.
In October 2022, a jury concluded Spacey did not molest Rapp while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in the 1980s. Spacey told Wootton that having to respond to the BuzzFeed News story’s allegations quickly did not permit him time to include a firm denial. “The point is what was alleged to have happened, something 30 years earlier, I had no time to investigate any of it. So I didn’t deny that. But what I did say was I don’t remember, which at that point was true because it…
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