In the fallout of the exposure of Harvey Weinstein, many other powerful men have also been outed as abusers. One of the highest profile cases right now is Kevin Spacey, who has been at the center of many allegations of sexual assault. Actor Anthony Rapp recounted a time when Spacey sexually harassed him when he was just 14 years old, and Richard Dreyfuss’ son Harry also accused the actor of groping him when he was 18 years old. Stories also arose from the House of Cards set, painting the picture of a predator who used his influence to manipulate and assault others.
On Monday afternoon, two more men came forward with their own allegations against Spacey, detail instances where Spacey made aggressive and unwanted sexual advances against them. Kris Nixon, a 30-year-old bartender from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who worked at a bar in London when he and a friend were invited to a party at Spacey’s apartment in 2007.
“He looked back towards my friend and said to me ‘Is that your girlfriend?’ I made the sort of universal hand signal for yes and no, and he reached over and grabbed my d— through my jeans and said ‘I can blow you better than her.’ He had only been there for three maybe four seconds. I was just stunned by the whole thing. I didn’t reply. I didn’t say s—. I just stood up, went over to her and said, ‘Look, we’ve got to go’, and we left. There were between a dozen to 20 other people there — a lot of people. You’d think that people working in that theatre would know what he did.”
When asked why he didn’t come forward sooner, Nixon explained “It was my word against his, and who is going to believe me? I didn’t know if anyone else saw him. Plus, everyone else at the party was either a friend or colleague of his.”
Nixon also detailed an instance when Spacey groped him at his place of work, but explained that he had previously chalked it up to a drunk guy being inappropriate. However, after Rapp came forward, Nixon realized that this was a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.
“Last week when I saw Anthony Rapp speak out, I thought, ‘No it’s not that. It’s a series of behavior. He’s a predator. It’s not just an incident.’ I believe he thinks that he could get away with things — or thought that he could get away with things — because of who he was. And you know what? He did.”
Former Marine Mark Ebenhoch also accused the actor of requesting that he “perform a sexual act” while they were working together on the set of 1995’s Outbreak, explaining that Rapp’s story also gave him the courage to come forward.
“Within minutes of Buzzfeed breaking the story on Rapp I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’m not the only one. Then you have the cavalcade and entire rush of memories. I went right back to the moment of that incident and thought I’m not the only one. Oh my God. I’m vindicated. And I wasn’t the only one that sat there and said, ‘This is creepy.’ Or had all those feelings of violation, indignation. I’ve read a lot of the feedback from people saying, ‘Well why didn’t they come forward [when it happened]?’ And I want to scream. People need to be in somebody else’s shoes before you react to what people do years later on these kind of things.
This was something I carried around for 23 years. I went on with my life, and at that point in my life I was still closeted. I was still in the military. I could have lost my military career, and it did hurt my film career when I did the article with the New York Times [coming out as gay] three years later.
Gay, straight, male, female. It makes no difference. This is about behavior and when people in power abuse that relationship or that stature they have to gain things from other people. It’s disgusting.”
Spacey is currently facing the fallout from these allegations, being dropped by his agent and fired by Netflix, removing him from House of Cards and canceling his Gore Vidal biopic, Gore.
(Via People)
