NEW YORK: It’s been just under five years since Kevin Spacey’s Oscar-winning career was rocked by a series of accusations of sexual misconduct, starting with Anthony Rapp accusing him of making an unwelcome sexual advance. desired in 1986.
The two actors are now heading to federal court in Manhattan, where jury selection is due to begin on Thursday in Rapp’s $40million civil lawsuit over the incident, which allegedly happened when he was 14. .
Spacey, 63, has denied Rapp’s accusations and other accusations of sexual misconduct.
“We look forward to a trial by jury with real evidence rather than a trial by social media,” his attorney, Jennifer Keller, said Wednesday.
Rapp, who starred in the Broadway musical “Rent,” alleged in a November 2020 lawsuit that Spacey forcibly touched him during a party at Spacey’s New York home. He said he left after the brief encounter.
Now 50, Rapp is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for assault and battery and willful infliction of emotional distress.
Spacey won Oscars for Best Actor in ‘American Beauty’ and Best Supporting Actor in ‘The Usual Suspects,’ but his career largely ended after more than 20 men accused him of sexual misconduct.
Netflix dropped him from its political drama “House of Cards” and Christopher Plummer replaced him as J. Paul Getty in “All the Money in the World” just weeks before the film was scheduled for release.
Spacey faces a criminal trial in London next year after pleading not guilty to five sex offense charges for alleged assaults between 2005 and 2013.
He was charged with indecent assault in Massachusetts in 2018 over allegations he sexually abused an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket bar in 2016, but prosecutors later dropped the charges after that the alleged victim refused to testify.