The Hollywood star said in court that he did not have a “power wand” to make people go to bed with him.
Two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey has insisted that claims of him grabbing a man “by his crotch” were “absolute b******s” during a heated exchange with the prosecutor at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Friday.
Prosecutor Christine Agnew harshly attacked the American actor, who earlier pleaded not guilty to 12 charges of sexual offenses allegedly committed against four men in the UK between 2001 and 2013. She said that she intended to prove that the 63-year-old was “a big sexual bully,” whose “trademark move” was the “crotch grab.”
Spacey rejected that characterization, while saying that the whole case against him was “weak.” Those accusing him are only after money, he claimed.
“I didn’t have a power wand that I waved in front of people’s faces to make them go to bed with me,” the Hollywood star said, adding that he has always been respectful when people said that they weren’t interested in him.
Spacey acknowledged that he had been “promiscuous” at times, but insisted that it didn’t make him “a bad person.”
“I am sure if I wanted to, I could have had sex all the time with lots of people, but I didn’t,” he claimed.
Spacey is a US citizen, but spent a significant part of his career as a stage actor in Britain, including as director of London’s Old Vic Theater between 2004 and 2015.
The prosecutor alleged that the actor behaved the way he did due to thinking that because of his status as “the golden boy of the London theater scene” his victims would be afraid to come forward and accuse him.
The ‘House of Cards’ star responded by saying that he was indeed influential, but only used his position “to help others, to create art, to try and bring the Old Vic back to its magical days.”
Last November, a New York City jury cleared Spacey of allegations that he molested fellow actor Anthony Rapp in 1986, when the future ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ star was just 14 years old.
The accusations filed by Rapp against Spacey in 2017 led to one of Hollywood’s most renowned stars disappearing from the screen. His character in ‘House of Cards’ show was killed off, while all footage featuring Spacey in Ridley Scott’s film ‘All the Money in the World’ was re-shot with the late Christopher Plummer replacing him in the role.
Last month, Spacey told German ZEITmagazin that he plans to return to acting after he is cleared of all the charges in the UK. “I know that there are people right now who are ready to hire me,” he insisted.
