Kevin Spacey believes the tide is finally turning in his favor. After years of legal battles and professional setbacks, the Oscar-winning actor says he no longer feels shut out by the entertainment industry.
Speaking openly about the sexual assault trials that changed his career, Spacey claimed that Hollywood is beginning to welcome him back as more people learn the outcomes of his court cases.
Kevin Spacey No Longer Feels Stuck In “Hollywood Jail”
Spacey shared his thoughts on his career during an appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast. “I feel much more welcomed, and I think that things are moving in the direction that we hoped they were moving in,” Spacey said. He also stressed that he had won “in every court we’ve gone into with a jury.”
Spacey pointed to the legal cases that followed the allegations against him, saying the verdicts have helped change public perception. He specifically mentioned the lawsuit filed by Anthony Rapp, whose allegations first appeared in a 2017 BuzzFeed article.
It triggered a wave of accusations against the actor. Rapp later sued Spacey for $40 million over claims of sexual assault and battery. However, a federal jury in New York found Spacey not liable on all counts.
“There are certain cases where part of something is true. But it’s been rethought, it’s been redesigned, or it’s been entirely made up, certainly in the case of Anthony Rapp. It is a case that we won in federal court in New York,” Spacey said.
Spacey Believes The Court Outcomes Have Changed How People See Him
Bill Maher told Spacey that he was not familiar with every detail of the allegations. But he admitted that he believed some of the claims had merit. “I’m not going to lie to you, I go by numbers with scandals,” Maher said. “If it’s like one person, I’m always like, I don’t know if I wasn’t in the room.” He then added, “There’s too much smoke to be no fire.”
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Spacey acknowledged crossing personal boundaries, but he feels the situation is exaggerated. “I never said there was no fire,” Spacey added. “It just wasn’t a raging forest fire. It was a small kitchen fire that could have been put out with an extinguisher.” He also admitted, “I hit on a lot of guys.”
Maher said Spacey deserved consequences but believed the actor had already paid a heavy price. “A 10-year sentence is a serious sentence,” Maher said. Spacey responded, “I feel less in jail than I did. When people actually start to hear the facts, understand what we won in courts, I think people now look at this and think, maybe nine years has been enough.”
He added, “If I had been a sports figure I would have been benched for seven games. If you’re hitting home runs, they want you on the field.”
The allegations dramatically changed Spacey’s career. Netflix removed him from ‘House of Cards‘, and Christopher Plummer replaced him in ‘All the Money in the World‘. Spacey has previously said that he lost almost everything during that period, including his home.
Although he has not returned to major Hollywood productions, Spacey has continued acting in recent years. He has taken roles in European films and television projects, as well as in independent movies.
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