Kevin Spacey testified on Thursday that he’s just “a big flirt” and denied sexually assaulting four men, calling a former “intimate” pal a backstabber who “crushed” him with the allegations.
“I never thought that [the man] I knew would ... 20 years later stab me in the back,” Spacey told a London court in his ongoing sexual-assault case.
He began to choke up and break into tears as he told the jury “my world exploded” when the allegations against him first arose in 2017.
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“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, dabbing his eyes.
Four men have accused Spacey, 63, of sexually assaulting them between 2001 and 2013, with their alleged experiences ranging from violent unwanted touching to non-consensual oral sex. Spacey has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges, including sexual assault and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
Prosecutors labeled the House of Cards star a “sexual bully” during the trial’s opening statements in late June and said he “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable.”
One of his accusers claimed Spacey inappropriately touched him on several occasions, citing a time the actor allegedly grabbed his crotch so violently while driving that he nearly ran off the road. The accuser told police he warned Spacey not to do it again and threatened him, ABC News reported.
But Spacey completely dismissed those allegations in his testimony on Thursday. “That never happened,” Spacey said. “I was not on a suicide mission in any of those years.”
Instead, the actor painted a very different picture of their relationship to the jury, describing a “somewhat sexual” and flirtatious friendship with his accuser. Spacey admitted he likely made the first move in making physical contact, but swore the touching was much gentler than in the accusations.
“It did not happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way. It was gentle and it was touching and in my mind romantic,” Spacey said.
“He said things like, ‘This is new for me,’ so I think he may have been surprised by his reaction,” he added. “The only thing he made clear was he didn’t want to go further than we were going and I respected that.”
His accuser previously testified that at the time of the incident the pair was driving to Elton John’s annual gala in 2004 or 2005. Spacey presented evidence that he was filming in Australia during the alleged assault, however, and claims he only attended the event in 2001.
He also pointed to pictures the man has kept on social media of the two of them together.
Spacey’s depiction of his encounters with his accuser goes against what other men have testified. Another man also accused Spacey of a “forceful” and “painful” attack in which Spacey violently grabbed his genitals at a charity event in 2005.
“It wasn’t like a caress,” the man testified. “It was like a cobra coming out and getting hold.” On Thursday, Spacey characterized the man’s account as “madness” and said he would never publicly “embarrass myself in such a way.”
The third accuser has claimed Spacey drugged him before he woke up in the actor’s London apartment in August 2008 to find Spacey non-consensually performing oral sex on him. In Spacey’s version of the story, the two enjoyed a “very nice and lovely evening” but the man “hurriedly left.”
“The person that I had this intimate moment with was suddenly awkward and fumbling,” he testified. “If he regretted it immediately, I don’t know. I can’t speak for him, but something was weird.”
Spacey said his phone records proved he called the man after the incident and kept in contact with him via text for several months.
When asked about his fourth accuser, who Spacey allegedly groped at a pub near Oxford in the early 2010s, Spacey replied he took almost “no issue” with the man’s testimony—although he said he didn’t remember the “clumsy pass.”
“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 confessed.
Spacey and his defense team have categorically denied all allegations of sexual assault and questioned the accusers’ motives, even suggesting the men jumped on the opportunity when Spacey came out as gay in 2020. He is scheduled to be cross-examined in court on Friday.
