Accusations continue to mount against Kevin Spacey nearly a week after actor Anthony Rapp first alleged that Spacey made a sexual advance upon him when he was 14 years old. Netflix suspended production of House of Cards following these accusations and Spacey’s bizarre decision to respond by coming out. More graphic details subsequently arose from another accuser, and now, a number of House of Cards employees say that they, too, have been sexually harassed and/or sexually assaulted by Spacey.
CNN spoke with several employees, both current and former, of the show. All of them anonymously noted the “toxic” environment for young men on the set due to Spacey’s behavior. Among the many accounts, one former production assistant called the actor “predatory” and says he targeted young male employees with “nonconsensual touching and crude comments.” He also accused Spacey of sexually harassing him — by putting “his hands down the production assistant’s pants” — while he drove the actor to the set:
“I was in a state of shock,” he said. “He was a man in a very powerful position on the show and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there.”
Once they had arrived on set, the production assistant says he helped the actor take his belongings from the car to Spacey’s trailer on set. While the two men were in the trailer, the production assistant says, Spacey cornered him, blocked his exit and made inappropriate contact with him.
“I told him, ‘I don’t think I’m ok with this, I don’t think I’m comfortable with this,'” the production assistant said, [and] the actor became “visibly flustered,” fled the trailer, got in his car and left.
The stories collected by CNN include Spacey making sexual comments about an employee’s “nice ass” and his habit of touching people’s genitals while engaging in “play fights” during set downtime, per one female employee:
“It was very known that Kevin was inappropriate, and males I worked with complained to me about how they felt uncomfortable,” she said. “Kevin does this thing which was play fights with them in order to touch them.” She said she saw Spacey approach “multiple people” to “say hello, greet them, shake their hand and pull their hand down to his crotch and touch their crotch. I have friends say he reached up their shorts on set.”
Other crew members told CNN that Spacey had a habit of touching people in “weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate.” All of those who disclosed their stories say they didn’t “feel comfortable” reporting Spacey out of fear for their jobs, given that he was not only the lead actor but also an executive producer on the show. One former camera assistant said that his co-workers often “commented” on Spacey’s actions and that crew members were required “to sign sexual harassment paperwork” before they began work on the show.
CNN has confirmed with Netflix that Spacey was issued sexual harassment guidelines prior and during his time on the show. The streaming giant also says they weren’t aware of Spacey’s alleged range of predatory behavior, other than a five-year-old incident that “Netflix was just made aware of” and was “resolved swiftly” when it happened. Meanwhile, MRC — the company that actually produces House of Cards — has deployed crisis counselors and set up “an anonymous complaint hotline” for those affected by this matter.
In related news, police in London — where sexual assault cases aren’t subject to statutes of limitation — are reportedly probing accusations from by a man who says Spacey “abused him” after he “passed out” at the actor’s home. Scotland Yard has yet to definitely confirm that Spacey is indeed the alleged perpetrator in this case, but over on this side of the pond, Spacey’s publicist and talent agency have both cut ties with him amid mounting allegations.
(Via CNN, The Guardian & USA Today)