Kevin Spacey trial latest: Emotional actor says world 'exploded' within days after assault allegations

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Kevin Spacey has said he had been looking to come out as gay for “two years” before the statement which “upset” members of the LGTBQ+ community.

Addressing the reasons for making the statement while facing allegations of an unwanted sexual advance in the US, he told jurors at Southwark Crown Court: “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 by a jury in a civil trial. 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.”

Kevin Spacey has said his world “exploded” in 2017 when allegations first emerged against him on the internet. 

Kevin Spacey grew emotional when he told jurors of how allegations against him impacted his life.

The Oscar-winning 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.”

Kevin Spacey has told jurors that he “primarily” has no issue with what a fourth complainant has told the court.

Spacey is accused of having had a “panicked” look on his face after a man rejected an alleged sexual grab at an expensive property he was staying at in the Cotswolds in the early 2010s.

Patrick Gibbs KC, for Spacey, reminded the actor that he told police it was “entirely possible” that he made a “clumsy pass” at someone.

The American Beauty actor told jurors: “I don’t remember doing that but I accept that I did. I primarily, with a few issues…I have no issue with what (the man) testified to. We all had some drinks…I made a pass and I’m only happy that he testified that the moment he told me he was not interested I stopped.”

Asked if he sought the man out the following day and why, Spacey said: “I can only presume that I went there to apologise.”

The actor said he did not remember a “great deal” about that evening.

Jurors heard that Kevin Spacey initially did not remember the complainant or any of the alleged events, before something in the man’s recorded police interview triggered a memory.

The Hollywood actor went on: “The description of our interactions, the attitude that he claimed I had, and then implying, although here in the witness box he accused me of drugging him, and then falling asleep for hours and hours and waking up in the morning to this terrible attack on him – none of that was true.”

Spacey insisted the story “made no sense” to him.

Kevin Spacey told a jury he did not drug a complainant or perform a sex act on him while he was asleep, saying that behaviour “makes no logical sense”.

He told the jury at Southwark Crown Court: “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.

“I think we were very comfortable with each other.”

He said he did perform a sex act on the man but claimed it was consensual.

Kevin Spacey told a jury that a complainant “hurriedly left” after the pair shared in an “intimate moment”.

The complainant told the court about an incident in the late 2000s where “things went further”, claiming Spacey had drugged him before waking up to find the defendant performing a sex act on him.

Spacey said: “We had had a sexual encounter after which I had gone to the bathroom and I came back from the bathroom and it was like… something had changed.

“The person that I had this intimate moment with was suddenly awkward and fumbling… and I don’t want to say ran out… but hurriedly left. And it felt very odd.

“I felt like maybe he was making an excuse and it concerned me and my memory is… that I called this person to make sure they were OK… and they were OK.”

Kevin Spacey described accusations against him by a man he allegedly met at a West End theatre in the mid-2000s as “madness”.

He is alleged to have grabbed the man’s crotch “like a cobra” after a “barrage of vile comments”.

“It’s madness,” Spacey told the jury. “It never happened.

“I never said any of the things that he claims I said to him and wouldn’t and never have to anyone in my life.”

He told the jury he did not recognise the complainant “at all” when showed a photograph of him.

Asked what he remembered of the day in question, Spacey said: “Not a great deal.”

Kevin Spacey denied that he almost caused the first complainant to “come off the road” after he “grabbed” the man while he driving him to a showbiz party in the early 2000s.

The Hollywood actor said: “That never happened.

“I was not on a suicide mission on any of those years.”

Kevin Spacey accepted that he touched one of the complainants but not in a “violent, aggressive, painful way”.

The Oscar-winning actor said: “He was a lads’ lad, he was funny and charming and flirtatious.”

He added that he touched the man in “romantic” and “intimate” ways, telling the court: “I’m a big flirt.”

Spacey said he and the man did not take things 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.”

The actor accepted that he touched the man but insisted: “It did not happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way.

“It was gentle… and it was, in my mind, romantic.”

Kevin Spacey described his relationship with the alleged victim as “somewhat intimate”.

He told jurors: “We talked about a lot of things, it was very relaxed with him – somewhat intimate.

“We enjoyed each other’s company.”

The two-time Oscar winner told the court he was “clearly the dumbest man in England” because he was “still renting a phone” while staying in the UK.

He said he was able to retrieve phone records from back to the early 2000s after his business partner was told the records went “all the way back”.

Kevin Spacey told jurors he “liked” a man who made allegations against him.

The complainant alleged the actor “aggressively” grabbed his crotch while he drove him to a showbiz party in the early 2000s.

Asked if he liked the man, Spacey said: “I liked him a great deal.

“We had a good time together. We laughed a lot.”

Spacey told a jury he found his first alleged victim to be “charming and funny”.

Spacey is accused of “aggressively” grabbing the man’s crotch while he drove him to a showbiz party in the early 2000s.

He told jurors he had made efforts to find out where he was at the time alleged offences took place.

Spacey said: “I happen to keep everything, so 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.”

The actor also said he had googled himself to check where he was at certain times.

Kevin Spacey told a jury how he became involved in the Old Vic theatre in London.

He said: “There is something quite unique about the Old Vic.”

The court heard that the theatre had “fallen into disrepair” around the early 2000s but there was a movement to “revitalise” it.

Spacey said: “I was crazy enough at some point to throw my hat in the ring as a possible candidate.”

He was artistic director of the Old Vic until 2015. He added that the same year he was “given an opportunity to do a television series that was going to shoot in the US that was called House Of Cards”.

Kevin Spacey told jurors that he considered his appearance in 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross to be his first significant film role.

He told Southwark Crown Court that his mother “considered herself an Anglophile” and he first visited the UK as a child.

Speaking about the first time he came to London as an actor, he told the jury he had stayed for several months in 1986 for a production of Long Day’s Journey at the Haymarket Theatre.

He said fellow actor Richard Harris put him up in his son’s apartment while he stayed in the UK.

Giving evidence, Kevin Spacey told a jury at Southwark Crown Court about his childhood and how he became an actor.

The court heard he was born in South Orange, New Jersey, in the US to a mother who was a private secretary and a father who worked in the aircraft industry.

He named a number of schools he went to, including one which fellow actor Val Kilmer attended.

He described how he “loved” his first experience of acting in drama class in his “eighth grade” and how he went on to attend The Juilliard School of Drama in New York after school.

The court heard he got his first job in New York in “a very small series of parts in Shakespeare in the Park”.

Patrick Gibbs KC addressed the jury at the start of the defence case in the trial of Kevin Spacey.

He said: “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 jury.

“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,” Mr Gibbs went on.

The barrister added that he hoped the jury could see why those questions “may at least have been worth keeping in mind”.

The Hollywood star, standing trial under his full name Kevin Spacey Fowler, was labelled a “sexual bully” when proceedings began last month.

The 63-year-old denies charges including sexual assault and indecent assault, which are alleged to have been committed between 2001 and 2013.

Over the course of the trial at Southwark Crown Court, each of Spacey’s four accusers have given evidence – variously describing him as a “vile sexual predator”, “slippery” and “atrocious, despicable, disgusting”.

One complainant, who alleges the actor “aggressively” grabbed his crotch while he drove him to a lavish showbiz party in the early 2000s, described Spacey’s behaviour as “like he thought he could groom me”.

Jurors also heard Spacey allegedly grabbed another man’s crotch “like a cobra” after meeting him at a West End theatre in the mid-2000s following an alleged “barrage of vile comments”.

The House Of Cards and American Beauty star is also accused of having had a “panicked” look on his face after a third man rejected an alleged sexual grab at an expensive property he was staying at in the Cotswolds in the early 2010s.

On Monday, an aspiring actor told the court of an incident in the late 2000s where “things went further” – claiming Spacey had “drugged” him before waking up to find the defendant performing a sex act on him.

Kevin Spacey has taken the stand in his trial.

His defence lawyer Patrick Gibbs KC told the jury at Southwark Crown Court that he would be calling the Hollywood actor to the witness box.

The two-time Oscar winner began by swearing an oath to tell the truth during his evidence.

Welcome to our live coverage on the latest updates from Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey’s sex offences trial.

The star will launch his defence today after prosecutors concluded their evidence on Wednesday.

The 63-year-old denies any wrongdoing.