Yahoo Movies Anthony Rapp Testifies About “Alarming” Sexual Misconduct By Kevin Spacey When Rapp Was 14 – Update
UPDATED with more testimony. Actor Anthony Rapp detailed what he called an “alarming” episode of sexual coercion involving Kevin Spacey when Rapp was 14 years old to close the second day of testimony in a $40 million lawsuit being tried in U.S. Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan.
During about an hour on the witness stand after a brief start earlier today, Rapp – a well-regarded Broadway performer known for Rent and now also a series regular on Star Trek: Discovery on Paramount+ — described how he found himself in Spacey’s New York apartment in the spring of 1986. Rapp’s initial report in 2017 about what he said happened in that high-rise building helped usher in a cascade of allegations against the former House of Cards star and Oscar winner, who also faces trial in the UK in a separate sexual abuse case. Rapp delivered his testimony about 30 feet away from Spacey, who looked at him steadily throughout his time on the stand, occasionally turning his gaze away to write on a notepad.
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Having come to New York on a break from his Chicago-area high school in order to act in Broadway show Precious Sons, which starred Judith Ivey and Ed Harris, Rapp described “soaking up” the cultural life of the city. Staying with his mother in a short-term rental apartment, he had “a great amount of freedom” to explore New York and make theater connections, he recalled. Accordingly, he thought nothing of it when Spacey, then a rising stage star in a revival of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Jack Lemmon, invited him to dinner and then afterward snuck he and another teen-age friend into Limelight, the legendary nightclub of the era. Nothing of special note happened on that outing, Rapp testified, but Spacey invited him to come to his apartment a few days later for a party. Because Precious Sons had closed and Rapp still craved experiences in the New York theater world, he walked over but soon regretted it as the revelers were all much older and showed no interest in getting to know him.
After the other guests left, Rapp said, Spacey came into a part of the apartment with a bed, where Rapp had been watching TV alone. He scooped up Rapp – who estimated that he was about 5-foot-5 and 100 pounds – and cradled him “like a groom holds a bride over a threshold.” Spacey, who appeared unsteady and “glassy-eyed” to Rapp, then laid down on top of Rapp, pinning his arms down with his “full weight” and pressing his groin into the side of the 14-year-old’s hip.
“I knew something was wrong,” Rapp testified. “I had this feeling I had to get out of there. What I was also feeling was frozen.” Even after Rapp “managed to wriggle out from under him,” Rapp said, Spacey then blocked his exit at the doorway, pointedly asking, “Are you sure you want to leave?” After another long moment, the teen managed to get outside.
Asked why he didn’t recount any of what allegedly happened to his mother or to the authorities, Rapp said it was complicated. He had not yet come out as gay and didn’t relish talking about “any kind of sex” with his mother. Going to New York was also such a heady professional adventure that he didn’t want to foreclose on future opportunities.
Spacey will take the stand next week in his own defense. His legal team has sought to cast doubt on Rapp’s claims by noting that Rapp offered an inaccurate drawing of Spacey’s apartment during a 2021 deposition, depicting it as having a separate bedroom when it was actually a studio. The defense will get a chance to cross-examine Rapp on Tuesday (after Monday’s court holiday for Columbus Day).
PREVIOUSLY:
Actor Anthony Rapp began testifying today in his sexual misconduct lawsuit against Kevin Spacey, with initial questioning covering only his upbringing in the Chicago suburbs before the court took a lunch recess.
Rapp’s testimony after lunch is expected to explore much more explosive territory, with the actor having accused Spacey of fondling him and trapping him inside a New York apartment in 1986, when Rapp was 14 years old. After going public with his claims in October 2017, Rapp filed his $40 million suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Spacey is also expected to testify in his own defense. Rapp, the younger brother of playwright and producer Adam Rapp, is a longtime presence on Broadway who starred in Rent and more recently appeared on Star Trek: Discovery.
The allegations by Rapp were among several that made Spacey one of the #MeToo movement’s early figures of ignominy, though the legal process is still taking its course. He faces trial in the UK for alleged sexual assault, with that case set for June 2023 and he is on the hook for $31 million awarded to House of Cards producers Media Rights Capital because the claims hastened the end of the show and were deemed a breach of his acting and producing agreements.
Spacey is expected to testify in his own defense in the NYC trial.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has run a tight ship since the trial started yesterday, repeatedly urging attorneys from both sides to skip extraneous or duplicative material. He also interrupted one witness, Christopher Denny, as he was trying to elaborate on an answer. “It isn’t an essay question,” the judge scolded him, urging instead to stick to “yes” or “no.”
Rapp detailed a working-class childhood in Joliet, IL, where he was raised solely by his mother, a nurse who divorced his father when Rapp was 2. He described with a nostalgic smile spending time with his friends, a “crew of weirdo nerds” who played Dungeons & Dragons and created their own magazines. He began acting in plays and musicals in the seventh grade, playing the lead in a production of Oliver.
Three witnesses were featured in the morning proceedings before Rapp took the stand. Among them was Andy Holtzman, who described an alleged assault by Spacey in 1981, which occurred when Holtzman was working for the Public Theatre’s film program and Spacey was acting in the Public-backed summer production of Shakespeare’s Henry the IV Part I.
Holtzman repeated allegations he first made in 2017, in a Facebook message visible to his connections on the social network. He claimed that Spacey entered an office where Holtzman was working and approached him without saying a word. Wearing “very tight jeans,” he had a “clear, large erection,” Holtzman said. Spacey then “lifted me up by my crotch,” set him on a desk and rubbed his body against Holtzman’s.
With Judge Kaplan sustaining many of the defense team’s objections, lawyers for Spacey sought to poke holes in Holtzman’s account, including his claim that he immediately recognized the actor from program materials. Given he was a struggling, unknown actor in 1981, the defense noted, that was unlikely. When shown pages from the summer 1981 program for Henry IV, Holtzman conceded Spacey’s picture was not included.
Spacey’s side also asked Holtzman why he hadn’t made his allegations public in 1981, especially given his testimony that Public Theatre chief Joseph Papp, a titan of New York culture and society, treated him like a son. “I kept it very much to myself for a long time, trying to process it,” Holtzman explained. “As Spacey’s star rose, it kept coming back to my face,” with the earthquake of the #MeToo movement providing further encouragement to finally make his account known.
Dominic Patten contributed to this report.
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