Kevin Spacey’s career is over.
The prolific actor was fired from multiple projects and forced underground amid a score of credible sexual assault allegations.
Despite Spacey’s precipitous fall from grace, his problems may only just be getting started.
After news of the first allegation against Spacey dropped, he used the common Hollywood tactic of issuing a vague non-apology and declaring his left-wing credentials to signal virtue and empathy; Spacey released a statement saying he was proudly coming out as gay, which was the worst-kept secret in the industry.
The gambit didn’t work for Harvey Weinstein, and it didn’t work for Spacey. Now he may be facing criminal prosecution for other assaults.
From Deadline:
Disgraced actor Kevin Spacey is under investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office for an alleged sex crime. To date, dozens of men have come forward with allegations that Spacey groped or assaulted them sexually – many when they were boys. Nearly all – if not all – of those alleged incidents, however, occurred years ago and fall well beyond the one-year statute of limitations.
“A case was presented April 5 by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,” a spokesman for the DA’s office said. “It’s under review.” According to an LA County sheriff’s statement, the department’s Special Victims Bureau began an investigation into allegations of a sexual assault involving Spacey on December 11, 2017. The events were reported to have taken place in October of 1992 in West Hollywood involving a male adult.
The Oscar-winning actor lost his job as the star of Netflix’ House of Cards not long after the first allegation surfaced against him last October, and was then replaced by Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World.
Spacey is also under investigation by police in England, where more than 20 men have accused him of inappropriate behavior during his 11-year tenure as artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre.
Actor Anthony Rapp was the first to accuse Spacey of sexual harassment. Rapp said he was 14 years old when Spacey laid on top of him at a party and tried to seduce him. Other accusers include the former son-in-law of the King of Norway, who accused Spacey of sexually harassing him after a Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2007; the son of actor Richard Dreyfuss, who claims Spacey groped him in 2008; and filmmaker Tony Montana, who accused Spacey of groping him at a bar in 2003 in Los Angeles.
Following Rapp’s allegation, Stacey released a statement saying in part that he did not remember the encounter, “But if I did behave then as he describes,” he wrote, “I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.”
The DA’s office recently declined to prosecute writer-director James Toback on five allegations of sexual assault because those cases fell outside the statute of limitations.
Spacey appears to be a serial harasser, so there’s a good chance at least some of the claims against him fall within the statute of limitations.
If so, Spacey’s ignominy could include prison time.