Actor Kevin Spacey has apologised for an alleged attempt to seduce a 14-year-old boy more than 30 years ago, an encounter the two-time Oscar winner denied recalling but attributed to drunkenness as he also came out as a gay man on Twitter.
But rather than tempering an uproar over the allegation, Spacey’s combination of an apology with a statement going public about his sexual orientation stirred a backlash against the actor as Hollywood found itself embroiled in yet another sex scandal.
Adding fuel to the latest controversy, was news on Monday that Netflix will soon end the landmark political drama “House of Cards,” which stars Spacey as a corrupt and closeted bisexual US president.
Netflix Inc did not give an explicit reason for deciding to air just one more season of “House of Cards” before pulling the plug on the Emmy-winning, critically acclaimed show, its first original hit series.
Netflix spokesperson Karen Barragan said the determination was made months ago, long before the allegation surfaced against Spacey, 58, who is also a Tony-winning actor and former creative director of London’s famed Old Vic theater.
But the internet streaming service and the show’s producers issued a joint statement saying they were “deeply troubled” by the accusation leveled against Spacey by actor Anthony Rapp, 46,a member of CBS’s new “Star Trek: Discovery” series.
According to Rapp, in an interview published late on Sunday by Buzz Feed, Spacey in 1986 made an unwanted sexual advance toward him when he was just 14 at the time.
Rapp said the encounter occurred after a party Spacey hosted at his New York apartment, where he said Spacey, then 26, found him watching TV alone at the end of the night when other guests had left, then carried him to a bed and lay down on top of him.
Rapp said he had the impression that Spacey was drunk, pushed him away and left.
“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 was just starting his career on Broadway in a production of “Precious Sons” at the time and went on to star in the hit musical “Rent.” Spacey was then appearing in a Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
