As the star of House of Cards, Kevin Spacey’s career was on fire until Anthony Rapp, another actor whose career was not, hopped on the #MeToo train to accuse Spacey of “the most traumatic event” of his life when he was 14.
The New York natives were both in Toronto working, and Manheim had invited Rapp and his boyfriend over to partake in the beloved theater geek ritual. But for the first time, Rapp — a working actor since he was 9 years old, and most famously part of the original cast of the musical Rent — felt something he’d never experienced before with the Tonys: dread.
And that’s because the host that night was Kevin Spacey.
In a fit of passion over legal doctrine, New York enacted the “Child Victim Act” to suspend the statute of limitations and enable people who claimed to have been sexually assaulted as a child to sue decades later. Rapp did, and it took a Manhattan civil jury less than an hour and a half to find that he failed to prove his case by a preponderance of the evidence. Rapp lost. Spacey prevailed.
What was unusual for this sort of case is that it wasn’t limited to merely “he said/he said,” with an accuser’s proof being nothing more than he claimed it happened and the accused’s proof being his denial that it did.
Mr. Rapp’s lawyers presented testimony from three men who said he had told them in the mid-1990s or earlier about an encounter with Mr. Spacey. The defense focused on inconsistencies and picked at vagueness in his account, highlighting that Mr. Rapp, 50, presented no third-party corroboration of the gathering on the night that he said the encounter had occurred. Midway through the trial, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, dismissed a claim against Mr. Spacey, 63, of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
One might expect that if this was the most traumatic even in Rapp’s life, he would remember it, but the now-pop litany of excuses for the failure of victims to get their story straight, or remember details at all, explains away what have long been telltales of fabrication.
Mr. Spacey said he had flirted with Mr. Rapp’s friend, John Barrowman, who was 19 at the time. Back at Mr. Spacey’s apartment, he said, he pushed Mr. Barrowman gently back onto the bed when Mr. Rapp left for the bathroom. Feeling that Mr. Rapp was too young to see them in a romantic situation, Mr. Spacey said, the two men sat up when Mr. Rapp returned.
In a videotaped deposition, Mr. Barrowman, an actor known for his role in the TV show “Doctor Who,” recalled the series of events that night as Mr. Spacey had.
The alleged assault happened in 1986, and in this instance, there both was an independent witness and he was still available. That isn’t always the case. Most of the time, there is no one to confirm an alibi as the story involves something that happened with no one else around. And even if there was a witness, what are the chances the witness is still alive, available, findable, and has any memory of an otherwise unmemorable night almost 40 years ago? For Spacey, the chances were luckily good, but that’s not the norm.
Despite issuing an apology shortly after Mr. Rapp made public his allegation, Mr. Spacey testified that the encounter never happened, that he had never been alone with Mr. Rapp and that he had not had a party at his apartment in the time frame Mr. Rapp described.
That apology was a piece of evidence that Rapp had to offer that might have sealed Spacey’s fate. After all, if it never happened, what is there to apologize for?
Mr. Rapp’s lawyers pointed to Mr. Spacey’s initial response to Mr. Rapp’s accusation, in which he did not categorically deny the encounter, as supporting evidence for their client. In a statement Mr. Spacey posted after the BuzzFeed article, he said he had no memory of the encounter, adding, “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”
if he “did behave”? What else could that mean but it was possible if not likely, or he would have said he never behaved that way. Wasn’t this a confession of sexual assault, a corroboration that Kevin Spacey, big deal actor, abused a 14-year-old boy?
In his testimony, Mr. Spacey said he regretted making that apology, attributing the decision to advisers who feared that people would call Mr. Spacey a “victim blamer” if he denied the allegation outright.
In the throes of #MeToo panic, almost every publicist was firmly of the view that there was no course of action available that wouldn’t destroy a career other than apologizing and praying that the waves of hate would subside, and that more copycat #MeToo-ers wouldn’t hop on the bandwagon to get their 15 minutes of fame and maybe a few bucks here or there. To deny is happened was unacceptable, because a “victim” said it happened and only a monster wouldn’t believe a “victim.”
It was’t so much that anybody believed that the apology would save an accused, but that there was no other option that wouldn’t make things worse. Apologize and you lose bad, Deny and you lose worse. Pick one.
“I’ve learned a lesson,” Mr. Spacey testified, “which is, never apologize for something you didn’t do.”
There are still pending accusations against Spacey, all coming on the heals of Rapp’s accusation taking him down. I have no clue what Spacey did or did not do, but accusers often find their “bravery” after someone else took the initiative. His lawyers say he will beat those cases as well, but whether he can mount a defense to ancient allegations or this is lawyer bravado is unclear. What is clear is that Rapp ruined him, even if Rapp couldn’t manage to win at a civil trial.
As a result of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, Mr. Spacey — who has won two Oscars and a Tony — lost major roles, with an arbitrator ordering him to pay $31 million to the “House of Cards” studio for breach of contract.
No conviction. No jury verdict against him. Just allegations. But that’s all it takes these day.
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