#MeToo movement sends clear, economic message
Sometime over the weekend, a moviegoer at the Deer Valley Cinema in Antioch, California, forked over $9 to sit in an otherwise empty theater — unwittingly becoming a solitary, popcorn-chomping symbol of just how forcefully the #MeToo movement has rocked Hollywood, and one actor in particular.
That actor is Kevin Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner, whose last movie, “Baby Driver,” raked in $20.5 million on its opening day.
His latest movie, “Billionaire Boys Club,” brought in a career-low opening day total for the actor, according to the Hollywood Reporter: $126. In between those two releases, more than a dozen men have accused Spacey of groping, fondling, or sexually assaulting them or making unwanted advances, a list full of people with their own IMDB pages who say Spacey's bad behavior goes back decades.
The accusations started in October when actor Anthony Rapp said Spacey made sexual advances toward him in 1985. The two knew each other from Broadway work, and Rapp told BuzzFeed that, at one point, Spacey picked him up, plopped him onto a bed and climbed on top of him. At the time, Spacey was 26. Rapp was 14.
In a tweet that served as a controversial public acknowledgment that he is gay, Spacey offered Rapp “the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”
The statement alluded to other “stories out there about me,” a foreshadowing of the allegations to come.
In the following weeks, men on two continents accused Spacey of similar assaults during parties at the actor's house, at bars and pubs, or on set. Several of the accusers said they were underage when the alleged assaults occurred. Many said they didn't come forward earlier because they feared no one would believe their stories over the word of a wildly successful actor and producer, a power dynamic they say Spacey exploited.
Last month, Scotland Yard said Spacey faces three additional allegations of sexual assault, according to the Guardian, bringing the total number of criminal charges against Spacey in Britain to six.