Some A-list actors are calling for Kevin Spacey to return to Hollywood after he was effectively banished from the industry in 2017 when allegations of sexual assault and misconduct first emerged.
Among Spacey’s supporters are Liam Neeson, Sharon Stone, Stephen Fry and F. Murray Abraham, who told The Telegraph that Spacey was unfairly cancelled. Their statements were made in the wake of the recent airing of a two-part Channel 4 documentary called Spacey Unmasked, which included new allegations of Spacey’s sexual misconduct from previously unheard accusers, including a claim that Spacey groped a fellow House of Cards actor.
“Kevin is a good man and a man of character,” Neeson told The Telegraph. “He’s sensitive, articulate and non-judgmental, with a terrific sense of humour. He is also one of our finest artists in the theatre and on camera. Personally speaking, our industry needs him and misses him greatly.”
“I can’t wait to see Kevin back at work. He is a genius. He is so elegant and fun, generous to a fault and knows more about our craft than most of us ever will,” Stone told the U.K. newspaper.
She added that it was clear aspiring actors “wanted and want to be around him” and called it “terrible” that they “are blaming him for not being able to come to terms with themselves for using him and negotiating with themselves because they didn’t get their secret agendas.”
The meaning of her comment is unclear, but seems to suggest that Stone believes Spacey’s accusers were “using” the actor and had “secret agendas.”
Spacey’s first accuser, actor Anthony Rapp, known for starring in Star Trek: Discovery, alleged that Spacey molested him in 1986 when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. A New York jury ruled in Spacey’s favour in Rapp’s civil lawsuit against the older actor in 2022, finding that Spacey did not sexually abuse him.
A year later, in 2023, Spacey was acquitted on all charges of sexual assault during a four-week trial in London that included allegations from four men. Three had accused Spacey of aggressively grabbing their crotches while a fourth claimed that he awoke to the actor performing oral sex on him after passing out in his apartment.
As new allegations emerged against him as part of the Channel 4 documentary, Spacey commented online that he felt his court wins had sufficiently absolved him.
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“There’s a proper channel to handle allegations against me and it’s not Channel 4,” he wrote. “Each time I have been given the time and a proper forum to defend myself, the allegations have failed under scrutiny and I have been exonerated.”
Also taking aim at the Channel 4 documentary, Fry told the Telegraph that he felt the accusations in Spacey Unmasked did not amount to crimes.
The U.K. actor and TV host acknowledged that Spacey had been “both ‘clumsy’ and ‘inappropriate’ on many occasions,” but to “continue to harass and hound him, to devote a whole documentary to accusations that simply do not add up to crimes … how can that be considered proportionate and justified?”
“Surely it is wrong to continue to batter a reputation on the strength of assertion and rhetoric rather than evidence and proof?” Fry added. “Unless I’m missing something, I think he has paid the price.”
Abraham, who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in Amadeus, told the Telegraph that he counts Spacey as a friend, saying, “I vouch for him unequivocally. Who are these vultures who attack a man who has publicly accepted his responsibility for certain behaviour, unlike so many others?”
“He is a fine man, I stand with him, and let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” Abraham added.
Abraham was fired from the Apple TV series Mythic Quest after being accused of sexual misconduct.
In his own interview with The Telegraph, Spacey said he felt that he was the victim of a “rush to judgment” as the #MeToo movement grew in the wake of allegations made against Harvey Weinstein.
Since 2017, when the first claims of sexual misconduct emerged against him, Spacey has worked on a handful of small projects — a far cry from his career before the allegations were made.
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