Kevin Spacey offers bizarre apology after Anthony Rapp claims

Actor Anthony Rapp claims the double Oscar-winner made sexual advances towards him when he was 14; Spacey's response to the allegations is both bizarre and misguided

Article by The Skinny | 30 Oct 2017

Actor Anthony Rapp has alleged that Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey tried to seduce him when he was 14; Spacey was 26 at the time. Speaking to BuzzFeed, Rapp, who’s now 46, explains that the incident took place in 1986 when the actors became friends while both starring on Broadway – Rapp was performing in Precious Sons while Spacey was in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night.

The alleged incident took place after a party at Spacey’s home, once the other guests had left. “My memory was that I thought, ‘Oh, everybody's gone. Well, yeah, I should probably go home,’” Rapp told BuzzFeed. “[Spacey] stood in the doorway, kind of swaying. My impression when he came in the room was that he was drunk. He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold. But I don't, like, squirm away initially, because I'm like, 'What's going on?' And then he lays down on top of me.”

“He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp said. “I don't know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”

Rapp, who would go on to appear in Dazed and Confused, Six Degrees of Separation and is currently starring in Star Trek: Discovery, says that over the years he became frustrated by the acclaim Spacey received as his fame grew in the 90s with award-winning roles in films like The Usual Suspects, LA Confidential and American Beauty. “At that time, I wanted to scream to the rooftops, 'This guy is a fraud!'” Rapp said.

Rapp explains that the recent wave of women who have bravely come forward alleging experiences of assault and harassment at the hands of Harvey Weinstein has urged him to share his experience with Spacey. "Part of what allowed the Harvey situation to occur was that there was this witting and unwitting conspiracy of silence,” said the actor. “The only way these things can continue is if there's no attention being paid to it, if it's getting forgotten.”

Spacey responded to Rapp’s claims in a bizarre statement in which he claims he doesn’t remember this incident, but he does not deny it either. Strangely, Spacey also uses the statement as an opportunity to come out as gay. "I know that there are stories out there about me and that some have been fuelled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy," he wrote. 

“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,” before adding: “I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior."

Given that Spacey has refused to address rumours about his sex life in the past, this seems a strange moment to come out of the closet, given that what is shocking about the incident is not that the actors are of the same sex, but that Rapp was so young.

By conflating the two, Spacey seems to be using his coming out as a way of deflecting criticism for his behaviour, or even worse it’s a misguided attempt to use his sexuality to explain his misconduct. Being gay has no bearing on trying to seduce a minor, or what Spacey euphemistically describes as "inappropriate drunken behavior", just as Weinstein's claims of sex addiction cannot be used as an explanation for the number of disturbing incidents of sexual assault he has allegedly perpetrated on dozens of women.