They span nearly half a century and paint a picture of a serial predator.
After being acquitted in courts of a handful of the dozens of sexual assault allegations against him, disgraced actor Kevin Spacey now wants to revive his career.
Prior to the ongoing litany of allegations made against him for sexual assault and misconduct, Spacey was primarily known as a decorated Hollywood and stage veteran, a two-time Oscar winner, and the star of Netflix’s groundbreaking House of Cards. That all changed in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of sexually assaulting him in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26.
The allegations made Spacey one of the most prominent celebrities accused as part of 2017’s #MeToo movement. Spacey was fired from House of Cards and his storied career seemed to end overnight. The years since have seen a floodgate of similar accusations against Spacey from men of various ages and backgrounds — over 50 in total, spanning a period of over 40 years and ranging from harassment to attempted rape.
Though Spacey initially apologized to Rapp, he later denied Rapp’s allegations. In 2022, a jury found Spacey not liable for sexual battery in a civil lawsuit brought against him by Rapp. In a UK criminal trial in 2023, a jury acquitted Spacey on nine different counts of assaulting four different men. Spacey claimed that three of the four men were lying and the fourth had simply misunderstood an awkward but harmless pass. He characterized his own actions as those of “a big flirt.” The jury believed him. He has reportedly issued a blanket “absolute” denial of all other allegations against him.
A recent incendiary documentary from the UK’s , Spacey Unmasked (which aired on Investigation Discovery and Max in the US), collected more new accounts from some of Spacey’s alleged survivors. Spacey continues to deny all of the allegations made against him, including those in the documentary. Speaking to the Telegraph in May, he claimed he had been the victim of a “rush to judgment.” In the same article, several prominent celebrities, including Sharon Stone and Liam Neeson, defended Spacey. Neeson claimed the industry “needs him and misses him greatly.” Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham called Spacey’s detractors “vultures,” while Stephen Fry characterized his offenses as “clumsy” and “inappropriate” but implied they were nowhere near the type of behavior of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Bestselling author Peter Attia also recently joined the list of public figures trying to rehabilitate Spacey’s image.
Spacey, who continues to enjoy a positive reception in Britain because of his long association with London’s Old Vic Theatre (where at least 20 men allege he assaulted or harassed them), sat for an interview with UK pundit Piers Morgan on June 11, 2024, in which he cried, confessed to getting “handsy,” and framed his behavior as “pushing the boundaries.” He depicted himself as having failed to understand when his sexual advances were unwanted, while denying more serious accusations of assault and nonconsensual misconduct.
Collected below is every public account of Spacey’s alleged long history of serial predation. The portrait painted by these allegations is suggestive of an aggressive, volatile, repeat sexual predator who frequently physically intimidates his targets, manipulates them into being alone with him, and uses his power and promises of career advancement as bait.
Since Rapp came forward in 2017, numerous other allegations against Spacey have surfaced. More than 50 men have made extremely consistent claims against the actor. Many of Spacey’s accusers describe witnessing or experiencing behavior from the actor that, like that of Weinstein, involved using the lure of his success and the opportunity of career mentorship to put himself in a position where he could prey on young men. Taken together, the allegations suggest a pattern of escalating physical contact and aggression, the consistent presence of alcohol, and Spacey making a habit of cornering his victims in order to confront them.
The allegations against Spacey are so numerous, spanning multiple decades and continents, that it’s difficult to track them all. Additionally, some of the allegations may overlap due to the confidential nature of police investigations. Still, to the best of our ability, we’ve attempted to clarify as many distinct alleged accounts on public record as we can.
Here are all of the allegations we know about so far.
In the documentary Spacey Unmasked, a man named Greg, who was a year behind Spacey at Chatsworth High School in Los Angeles, alleged that Spacey sexually assaulted him when Spacey was 17. While Greg was driving them both to a party and Spacey was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, Spacey allegedly grabbed Greg’s genitals. “It was a very aggressive sexual move,” Greg recalled. Greg also claimed that he felt “trapped” because of the circumstances. He says Spacey later begged him not to tell anyone what happened.
On November 10, 2017, USA Today reported that Andy Holtzman, then 27, was working at New York’s Public Theater when Spacey, then 22, allegedly entered his office and wordlessly assaulted him.
“It was so out of place, so sudden,” Holtzman said. “It was the wordlessness of it — he never spoke to me throughout, not one word. I was saying things, he was saying nothing.”
Holtzman claimed that Spacey silently entered, sat down, then stood up and cornered him, assaulting him with “more than a grope.”
“He was up and all over me. When I was finally able to push him off and scream (at him), he theatrically stepped back, incredibly angry, grabbed his coat and bag, stormed out and slammed the door.”
Holtzman’s allegation is the first on the public record of many that characterize Spacey as extremely persistent during the assaults — and extremely angry if he was rejected. Holtzman later testified in the 2022 civil case brought by Rapp against Spacey; here he told jurors that Spacey “lifted me up by my crotch” and “pushed me back onto my desk” during the 1981 incident. Spacey denied Holtzman’s allegation.
Holtzman’s allegations were later included in the documentary Spacey Unmasked. He described the alleged occurrence as “completely out of the blue” and added that “there was nothing but force — physical force.”
An anonymous man told New York magazine that in 1983, when he was 14 and Spacey was 24, he began a sexual relationship with Spacey that allegedly culminated in Spacey attempting to rape him.
The anonymous actor stated that his relationship with Spacey lasted about a year, during which time he became aware that “25-year-olds don’t have sex with 14- and 15-year-olds, that that’s wrong, that I was not the guilty party and I could leave.” He told New York that the relationship ended when he was 15, after Spacey allegedly attempted to rape him.
“I guess he must have come up behind me and yanked down my baggy jeans, and he goes to fuck me and I’m like, “No, I don’t want to.” And he pushes hard, and grabs me, and starts shoving up against my asshole, and it hurts like a motherfucker. I again tell him no, and he tries again.”
The actor said he was able to fight Spacey off and escape. Spacey denied the allegation.
After Rapp came forward in 2017, the anonymous man approached him about filing a civil lawsuit against Spacey. While both men pursued the case and stood by their allegations, the anonymous man ultimately dropped his claims after the judge in the case refused to grant him anonymity or pseudonymity.
The BBC reported on November 1, 2017, that Spacey allegedly approached an anonymous 17-year-old boy in 1985, befriending the teen and then ultimately inviting him to visit his home, where Spacey progressed from being “charming and brotherly” to sexually inappropriate. After rejecting Spacey’s initial advances, the accuser says he woke up to find “Spacey’s head on his stomach and his arms wrapped around him.” The anonymous source described Spacey to the BBC as “either very stupid or predatory or . both,” and noted that Spacey had not been drunk during their encounter.
“It seems he was grooming me”, the anonymous source told the BBC.
Though Edwards is an outlier in the list in terms of gender, her alleged experience has commonalities with several of the other allegations.
When London performing arts teacher Kate Edwards was 17, she worked as a production assistant for the 1986 Broadway revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, in which Spacey starred alongside his longtime idol Jack Lemmon. Edwards alleged to the BBC that Spacey, then 27, invited her up to his flat for an apparently nonexistent party, where he kissed her. When it became clear he wanted sex, she made her excuses about wanting to leave, alleging that he then “became cold” and told her to “find [her] own way” home.
Edwards said that Spacey subsequently “cut her dead” after the encounter, telling the BBC that she became depressed and eventually had to quit the show because of how “confused, completely isolated, ashamed” she felt over the incident.
Rapp told BuzzFeed that Spacey befriended him in 1986, when Rapp was 14 years old and performing in the Broadway play Precious Sons. According to Rapp, Spacey made “a sexual advance” toward him while he was attending a party at Spacey’s home. In his subsequent lawsuit, he claimed Spacey picked him up bridal-style, put him on the bed, and lay on top of him until he managed to extricate himself and flee into the bathroom.
A man named Justin Dawes told BuzzFeed that he met a 29-year-old Spacey through a Connecticut theater when he was 16 years old and a junior in high school. Spacey allegedly invited Dawes and a friend to hang out at his apartment, where he served them cocktails and showed gay porn. According to BuzzFeed, even though nothing else happened, “at the time, the 16-year-old felt like he ‘should’ve realized’ that Spacey wanted him to come over for reasons related to sex.”
“He knew that I was in high school,” Dawes told BuzzFeed. “It was pretty clear.”
In April 2018, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that it had received an allegation by an unnamed man that Spacey had sexually assaulted him in 1992. Though the office, which ultimately declined to prosecute the case since it fell outside the statute of limitations, revealed little about the claim, they did confirm that the accuser was an adult at the time of the incident.
Spacey’s involvement with London’s Old Vic Theatre began in the mid-90s, and the theater would go on to serve as the site for 20 accusations. He served as the theater’s artistic director from 2004 to 2015. In 2017, after the initial allegations against Spacey came to light, the Old Vic set up a confidential email to receive tips and reports about the actor. Multiple allegations concerning Spacey’s behavior while at the Old Vic quickly surfaced.
On November 16, 2017, the Old Vic announced that it had received 20 “personal testimonies” through its investigation into Spacey.
