HOLLYWOOD ACTOR KEVIN Spacey has become the latest high-profile movie figure to be accused of a historical sexual assault – and has come out as gay in response.
Spacey was accused by Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp of making a sexual advance on him at a party in 1986.
At the time Rapp was just 14 years old, while Spacey was 26.
Spacey responded to the allegations via his Twitter account, and said that while he has no memory of the encounter, “if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour”.
The Twitter response came after Rapp gave an interview to Buzzfeed News in which he made the allegation.
58-year-old Spacey went on say that Rapp’s accusation “encouraged me to address other things about my life”.
The two-time Oscar winner has zealously guarded his private life throughout his years in the Hollywood spotlight.
“As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man,” he said.
I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behaviour.
Rapp, now aged 46, told Buzzfeed that in 1986, while both he and Spacey were performing in Broadway shows, Spacey invited the then 14-year-old to a party at his New York apartment.
He said he was in Spacey’s bedroom watching TV when Spacey appeared in the doorway at the end of the night, “kind of swaying” and apparently drunk.
Rapp said Spacey picked him up, put him on the bed and lay on top of him.
He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp told Buzzfeed. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.
Rapp said he squirmed away after a brief period of time and went into the bathroom. Shortly after, he left Spacey’s apartment and went home.
He said he was making the revelation now as a result of the every-increasing list of women who have come forward to out Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as a serial sexual assaulter.
“(I’m doing this) not to simply air a grievance,” he said.
“But to try to shine another light on the decades of behaviour that have been allowed to continue because many people, including myself, being silent.”
I’m feeling really awake to the moment that we’re living in, and I’m hopeful that this can make a difference.”
With © – AFP, 2017
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