Kevin Spacey Tells UK Court He Had “Somewhat Intimate” Relationship With Alleged Victim
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UPDATE, 3.30am PT: Kevin Spacey told a jury his relationship with one of his alleged victims was “somewhat intimate,” as he took the witness box during his UK trial at Southwark Crown Court today.
The Usual Suspects and House of Cards star found the man, who was the first of four to give evidence against him during the sex crimes trial, “charming and funny.” He is accused of “aggressively” grabbing the man’s crotch while being driven to a showbiz party in the early 2000s.
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“We talked about a lot of things, it was very relaxed with him – somewhat intimate,” Spacey told jurors. “We enjoyed each other’s company.”
He admitted touching one of the complainants but not in a “violent, aggressive, painful way,” calling the man a “lad’s lad” who was “funny and charming and flirtatious.”
He told the court he had touched the man in “romantic” and “intimate” ways, adding: “I’m a big flirt.”
Spacey said things did go further because the alleged victim “made it clear that he did not want to go any further and that happens at times, and you just respect how far someone wants to go.”
“I can’t remember specific conversations we had but I remember the tone, I remember the atmosphere, I remember the laughter,” Spacey went on. “We had a very fun time together.”
“It makes no logical sense”
Addressing a different complainant’s testimony, Spacey denied drugging an aspiring actor or performing a sex act on him while he was asleep, saying that the behavior “makes no logical sense.” He said he did perform a sex act on the man but claimed it was consensual.
He told the jury: “I remember the end of the evening and that was what struck me in my mind because we had a consensual and, I believe, a very nice and lovely evening.
“If he regretted it immediately I don’t know, I can’t speak for him, but something was weird – it was strange.”
Asked if he remembered any physical contact he had with the man, Spacey told jurors: “I don’t remember but I know the way I am with someone and I would never be behaving in the way he claimed – it makes no logical sense.”
On some of the other allegations, Spacey said they “madness” and are a “stab in the back.”
The 63-year-old grew emotional when he told jurors of how allegations against him impacted his life. The actor was seen dabbing his eyes with a tissue and could be heard sniffing as he gave evidence in the witness box.
Telling the court about the first allegations that emerged against him online, Spacey said: “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 said he had been looking to come out as gay for “two years” before the statement which “upset” members of the LGTBQ+ community. He added that he was pressured to come out as gay after allegations of sexual misconduct were first levelled against him online.
Addressing the reasons for making the statement while facing allegations of an unwanted sexual advance in the U.S., he told jurors: “I was under a lot of pressure that I had to say something… if I didn’t it was going to be a nightmare, a PR nightmare.
“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.”
The allegations made by actor Anthony Rapp against Spacey were found not proven in October last year. He told jurors he had wanted to come out for two years and at one stage had picked out a “particular event” to do it.
Spacey continued: “I thought in the face of this terrible accusation maybe I can do something at least positive. The gay community had been pressuring me for a very long time about coming out.
“Maybe now that the allegation against Mr Anthony Rapp has been proven to be false, maybe people will read that with a little bit more understanding now.”
“I happen to keep everything”
Elsewhere during today’s testimony, Spacey said he had made efforts to find out where he was at the time of the various alleged offenses.
“I happen to keep everything,” he said. “I have a storage facility in Baltimore and a storage unit in London, and I started to go back and look through boxes and boxes and boxes of where I was, contracts between myself, my publicists and photographers, to look at dates to try to be able to say where I was and what time.”
He also searched Google to cross-check his whereabouts on the dates in question and said he was “clearly the dumbest man in England” because he was “renting a phone” that has allowed him to retrieve phone records all the way back to the early 2000s.
He began his testimony by recalling his early life in South Orange, New Jersey, and how he “loved” his first experience of acting in a drama class during eighth grade. He told the jury his mother “considered herself an Anglophile” and that he had visited the UK as a child.
He first came to London as an actor in 1986, staying for several months. He noted late actor Richard Harris put him up at his son’s apartment while he was in the country.
PREVIOUS: Kevin Spacey is to take the witness box today as his defense in his UK sexual offences trial begins.
Spacey’s lawyer Patrick Gibbs KC has told the jury at Southwark Crown Court in the past few minutes that he would be calling the Hollywood actor to the witness box. Prior to the trial, it was unclear whether Spacey would provide a defense or not.
The two-time Oscar winner began by swearing an oath to tell the truth during his evidence.
Gibbs addressed the jury at the start of the defense case, saying: “A couple of weeks ago when I very briefly identified the issues to you I suggested that there might be some obstacles in your route to the truth, and those obstacles, I suggested then, were rumour and fame and how fame makes people behave towards you and secrecy… and sexual confusion.”
He added that he hopes the “obstacles” are “in pretty clear sight” for the 12 jurors.
“I asked you just to keep an eye out for what actually happened – whether it was consensual, whether it appeared to be consensual, what by contrast has been or may have been reimagined with a sinister spin and what has just been made up,” Gibbs went on to say. The barrister added that he hoped the jury could see why those questions “may at least have been worth keeping in mind.”
The jury has spent the last fortnight hearing the case for the prosection including testimony from four complainants. The offenses are all alleged to have happened in Britain between 2001 and 2013 when Spacey worked at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Spacey has variously been accused of likely drugging someone before he woke up to find Spacey performing a sex act on him, grooming and grabbing a different person’s genitalia.
The jury has also heard how Spacey told police he was “baffled” and “deeply hurt” by accusations of sexual assault but admitted he could have made a “clumsy pass” at one of his accusers, the court heard earlier this week.
In January, Spacey pleaded not guilty to three counts of indecent assault, three counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent. The two-time Academy Award winner also previously denied four further charges of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
He was granted unconditional bail before the trial began. The trial continues.
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