Kevin Spacey Denies He Grabbed Man’s Genitals on a Freeway: ‘I Was Not on a Suicide Mission’
Kevin Spacey has denied grabbing a man’s genitals so hard while on the freeway that the man almost crashed the car they were both traveling in.
Spacey, who is in the third week of his sexual assault trial in the U.K., told the jury at Southwark Crown Court in London the alleged assault never happened. On Thursday morning Spacey’s barrister, Patrick Gibbs KC, asked the actor, who was sat in the witness box, whether the “car crash” incident had taken place during the early 2000s, to which Spacey replied: “No. I was not on a suicide mission on any of those years.”
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Earlier he told the jury his alleged accuser was “flirtatious” and that the touching did not happen in an “aggressive” or “violent” way.
“I’m a big flirt,” Spacey replied when asked if he was flirtatious himself. “We had a very fun time together,” the actor told the court. He added that the man said the experience was new for him and did not want to go further. “I respected that,” Spacey said.
Of another alleged victim, who claimed Spacey grabbed him “hard” backstage at a charity event after having earlier made aggressively sexual remarks, the actor said: “I never said anything of the things he claims I said to him and wouldn’t and never have in my life.”
When asked by Gibbs what Spacey made of the man’s accusations about being grabbed, the actor replied: “It’s madness. It’s madness because it never happened.”
Gibbs also questioned Spacey about the most serious allegation, in which he is accused of drugging a man before performing oral sex on him whilst he was unconscious. Spacey said that when originally questioned by police, he hadn’t recognized the alleged victim’s name, photograph or the allegations. The actor said his initial thought was “This is someone who’s just shaking me down and I’ve faced this before.”
Originally, the alleged victim had believed the encounter had taken place in mid-August, which Spacey proved could not have been the case because of his frequent international travel that month. After a private investigator tracked down the complainant’s then phone number, telephone records showed Spacey had made numerous phone calls and sent a number of text messages to the man on the night the incident was said to have taken place in the months following the alleged assault, including a 19 second call during the period in which the man claimed he would have been unconscious.
Spacey also said that he had found an old telephone in his storage locker that showed he had saved the man’s number in his phone.
The “House of Cards” actor’s account of the evening is that the two men had a consensual sexual encounter in which Spacey performed oral sex on the complainant during what was a “very nice and lovely evening.” Spacey said he then went to the bathroom and when he returned the man left “hurriedly.”
“If he regretted it immediately I don’t know, I can speak for him,” said Spacey. “But something was odd, something was strange and it concerned me.”
Earlier, Spacey appeared relaxed and smiling in the witness box. After his barrister’s opening remarks, the 63-year-old actor told jurors that he had an “excessive” amount of energy when he was younger and it was recommended that he went to drama classes.
Spacey attended the Juliard School of Drama in New York, he told the court. He was asked about when he started acting and replied, “My mother would say when I came out.” His first jobs were small parts in Shakespeare In The Park shows in New York, he said, adding that he did three years of regional theater after that.
The court heard that his first film role was in 1985, aged 26 and his first significant role was in “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992).
Spacey, who denies 12 charges of sexual assault against four men, told the court about his stint as artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre and the connection he felt with its “remarkable history.” “I was crazy enough to throw my hat in the ring,” Spacey said of the role, adding that when he got the lead in hit Netflix drama “House of Cards” he began spending long periods of time away from the theatre. He relinquished the Old Vic role in 2015.
More to come.
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