In the wake of a combined several hundred sexual assault allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and filmmaker James Toback, actor Anthony Rapp has shared that Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was just 14. In an interview with Buzzfeed News, Rapp alleges that in 1986, 26-year-old Spacey invited Rapp to a party at his apartment and tried to “seduce” the pre-teen once the other partygoers had left.

Rapp first met Spacey when they were both working on Broadway—Rapp on Precious Sons and Spacey on Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Rapp told Buzzfeed that Spacey first invited him and a friend to popular NYC nightclub Limelight, despite Rapp being only 14. At some point in the night, Spacey invited Rapp to a party at his apartment a few days later. When Rapp arrived at the party, he quickly realized that he was the only child in attendance and that he didn’t know anyone, though these were both aspects of his job he’d grown accustomed to as a child actor. After growing bored, Rapp located a TV in a bedroom in Spacey’s house and spent the rest of the night there.

At some point, Spacey appeared in the bedroom doorway, and Rapp realized that the other guests had all left. “My memory was that I thought, Oh, everybody’s gone. Well, yeah, I should probably go home,” Rapp said. Spacey “sort of stood in the doorway, kind of swaying. My impression when he came in the room was that he was drunk. He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold. But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me. He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp said. “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 went on to say, “The older I get, and the more I know, I feel very fortunate that something worse didn’t happen. And at the same time, the older I get, the more I can’t believe it. I could never imagine [that] anyone else I know would do something like that to a 14-year-old boy.” Rapp told Buzzfeed that he considered talking to Spacey about what happened, but he never did. He also thought about telling his mother, but that would require him to speak about his own sexual orientation—something he wasn’t yet ready to do.

Hours after Rapp’s interview was published on Sunday night, Spacey posted a statement to Twitter stating that he does not remember the encounter, but that, if it did happen, he’s sorry for his “deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In the same statement, Spacey revealed that he is choosing “now to live as a gay man.”

Spacey and his team have artfully used his coming out to deflect from Rapp’s allegations, dangerously altering the narrative and effectively conflating homosexuality with pedophilia. As Ira Madison III so eloquently writes for The Daily Beast, “Here, Spacey has changed the narrative of him allegedly assaulting a 14-year-old boy, put on Jamie Foxx’s ‘Blame it on the Alcohol,’ and ended it with, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m gay!’” The New York Daily News and ABC News were just two of several media outlets to fall for Spacey’s trap, focusing their coverage of the situation on Spacey’s sexuality as opposed to his alleged assault against a 14-year-old.

An angry Twitter storm has ensued since Spacey shared his statement. While some users are mad that he mentions his drunkenness in an attempt to extinguish his culpability, most are furious that he chose this moment to come out as gay.

In a series of tweets late Sunday night, Rapp shared his hopes that his story would encourage others to do the same and declined to comment any further about Spacey’s deeply problematic statement.

Related:
Jessica Chastain, George Clooney and More Speak Out Against Harvey Weinstein
Call It What It Is, Harry Styles Was Sexually Assaulted at His Recent Performance
Rose McGowan Isn’t Buying Ben Affleck’s Harvey Weinstein Statement—and Neither Are We

The post Kevin Spacey “Apologizes” to Anthony Rapp for Alleged Sexual Assault in the Worst Way appeared first on Flare.

Filed under: editors-picks, flare, kevin-spacey