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Kevin Spacey Provokes Furious Backlash By Coming Out as Gay after accusation of sexual misconduct

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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Kevin Spacey, star of “House of Cards” came out as gay late Sunday night after actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance on him when he was 14 years old.

Spacey, 58, issued a statement on his own Twitter account in response to the accusation. In the statement, Spacey apologized to Rapp and said he had no memory of the episode, but described it as “deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

“I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I’m beyond horrified to hear this story,” Spacey said. “I honestly do not remember the encounter … But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

And he went on to confirm something that had been circulating in Hollywood for years: Spacey is gay.

“I know that there are stories out there about me and that some have been fueled by the fact that I have been so protective of my privacy,” he wrote. “As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men througout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.”

“Coming out stories should not be used to deflect from allegations of sexual assault,” Ellis said. “This is not a coming out story about Kevin Spacey, but a story of survivorship by Anthony Rapp and all those who bravely speak out against unwanted sexual advances. The media and public should not gloss over that.”

One of Weinstein’s most vociferous accusers, Rose McGowan, pointed out that the attention should be on the actor who claimed he was the victim, rather than Spacey’s sexuality.

“This exposes the gay community to a million tired old criticisms and conspiracies,” Vanity Fair movie critic Richard Lawson wrote, adding, “How dare you implicate us all in this.”

“Coming out as a gay man is not the same thing as coming out as someone who preyed on a 14-year-old,” Lawson wrote. “Conflating those things is disgusting.”

Rapp, now 46, accused Spacey of attempting to seduce him at a party in 1986.

“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,” Rapp said in a BuzzFeed article published Sunday.

“He was trying to seduce me. 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 added.

Rapp’s claim against Spacey is the latest in a string of sexual harassment and assault allegations that has rocked the entertainment business. Several women publicly accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of varied degrees of wrongdoing in The New York Times and The New Yorker, leading to Weinstein’s dismissal from the production firm he cofounded.