Kevin Spacey denied the sexual abuse allegations against him Monday in testimony that included an emotional description of an upbringing he described as "humiliating and terrifying." "I have never talked about these things publicly," Spacey said in federal court in New York, NBC News reports. "Ever." Spacey is fighting a $40 million lawsuit filed by a fellow actor, Anthony Rapp, who accuses him of sexual assault at a party in 1986. Rapp was 14 at the time. Spacey had one victory Monday, when the threw out a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, saying it was redundant.
Spacey said his father, whom he called a "white supremacist and neo-Nazi," would lecture him for hours, leaving him with a sense of shame and a hatred for bigotry that contributed to his reluctance to come out as gay. "I'd grown up in a situation as a child where I wasn't comfortable talking about these things," Spacey testified. Once his career was established, the Oscar winner said, he "wanted people to remember the characters" he had played, not him. Spacey came out as gay in 2017. He said his love of performing was encouraged, on the other hand, by hearing his mother laugh at the impressions he did of Hollywood stars, and Spacey included a few in his testimony.
Spacey also addressed Rapp's allegations. "They are not true," he testified, per the AP. Rapp has testified that he was assaulted in the bedroom of Spacey's apartment. On Monday, Spacey's lawyers displayed in court a floor plan of what they said was the apartment he was renting at the time, which showed a studio with no separate bedroom. It was the first time Spacey had testified in the trial. (More Kevin Spacey stories.)
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