Spacey: I was somewhat intimate with one of my accusers but not violent
KEVIN Spacey yesterday admitted to being “a big flirt” who had been “somewhat intimate” with a man who alleges that he was sexually assaulted by the Hollywood star.
But the Oscar-winning 63-year-old denied assaulting him in a “violent, aggressive, painful way”, telling a jury he felt “crushed” the man would “stab me in the back” so many years later.
Spacey, who won the Oscar for The Usual Suspects, is accused of “aggressively” grabbing the man’s crotch while he was being driven to a showbiz party by him in the early 2000s.
Cobra
Launching his defence case yesterday, he insisted the alleged attack “never happened”. He added at Southwark Crown Court: “I was not on a suicide mission.”
Spacey also labelled as “madness” claims made by a second man he is said to have met in a West End theatre in the mid-2000s.
The LA Confidential actor is accused of grabbing that person’s crotch “like a cobra” after making a “barrage of vile comments” described to the jury as “hardcore”.
Spacey said: “I never said any of the things that he claims I said to him and wouldn’t and never have to anyone.” Denying the allegations against him made by the first complainant, he told the jury: “He was a lads’ lad. He was funny and charming and flirtatious.”
Spacey admitted touching him in “romantic” and “intimate” ways. But he insisted he and the alleged victim did not take things further because the man “made it clear that he did not want to go any further and that happens at times and you just respect how far someone wants to go”.
He added: “I can’t remember specific conversations we had but I remember the tone, I remember the atmosphere, I remember the laughter. We had a very fun time together.”
Accepting he touched the man, he said: “It did not happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way.
Romantic
“It was gentle…and it was in my mind romantic.”
Asked by his barrister if there was any reluctance from the alleged victim over his advances, Spacey said: “No. The only thing he made clear is he did not want to go any further than we were going and I respected that.” Questioned on whether the man had said anything after Spacey touched him, the defendant said: “I think he said things like, ‘This is new for me’ so I think that he may have been surprised by his reaction.”
The actor denied he had almost made the complainant “come off the road” after the alleged “aggressive” grab, saying: “That never happened. I was not on a suicide mission.”
When Mr Patrick Gibbs KC quizzed his client about the man he allegedly made lewd comments towards in a West End theatre, Spacey replied: “I never said any of the things that he claims I said to him and wouldn’t and never have to anyone in my life.”
He told the jury he did not recognise the complainant “at all” when shown a photograph of him.
The US-born former artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre has been branded a “sexual bully” by prosecutors. He denies three counts of indecent assault, three counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, between 2001 and 2003.
Spacey, whose second Oscar was for American Beauty, also previously denied four further charges of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
The trial continues.