Kevin Spacey trial: Aspiring actor ‘woke to find Hollywood star performing sex act on him’, court hears
A former aspiring actor has told a court he believes he was drugged by “vile sexual predator” Kevin Spacey before he allegedly woke to find the Hollywood star performing a sex act on him at his London flat.
The man – the last of four complainants to give evidence against the double-Oscar winner during a trial at Southwark Crown Court in London – became emotional as he recalled the alleged offence in a police interview played to jurors, and later answered questions under cross-examination from behind a screen in court.
The alleged victim said that before he fell asleep, Spacey “circled like a shark” – and described the alleged attack as “completely traumatic and life-ruining”.
Later, responding to defence lawyer Patrick Gibbs KC’s questions about the complainant’s sexuality and whether he was confused about what happened, he called the questioning “reprehensible”.
“I was taken advantage of, I believe drugged, sexually assaulted,” the man told the court.
Spacey, 63, denies 12 sexual offence charges – including one charge of sexual assault and one charge of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity, in relation to the fourth complainant.
Read more: Latest developments from court as they happened
A court sketch of Spacey in the dock. Pic: PA/Elizabeth Cook
Jurors heard how the aspiring actor wrote to the Hollywood star asking for mentorship and was “dumbstruck” to receive a call a few weeks later suggesting they meet later that evening.
He had been told the American Beauty and The Usual Suspects actor liked “young, straight men” but did not know at this point that “he was a predator”, jurors heard.
In his police interview, the man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – said the Hollywood star made him feel “weirdly special” by asking him to meet for a beer. The alleged victim was “starstruck” and did not question his intentions, the court heard.
Giving details of the night of the alleged sexual offence, the complainant said he met Spacey in London at about 11pm and that they walked for about 10 minutes before the actor invited him into his flat.
The man told the officer he drank a couple of beers and smoked part of a joint with Spacey. At some point, the House Of Cards star went to hug the man as they sat on the sofa in the living room area, and then rubbed his face into the complainant’s crotch, jurors heard.
The alleged victim said he remembered looking at the “bald patch” on the back of Spacey’s head and thinking what was happening was “one of the strangest moments of my life” – and something he would “never forget”.
Alleged victim ‘conked out’
The man told police he was “very nervous” and felt “vulnerable” during the alleged incident but he did not leave at this point.
He questioned his own behaviour, whether he was being a “d***head” and if this was just how some people behaved in the “theatre world”, jurors heard from his police interview.
He also did not want to “annoy” Spacey, the court was told.
“You just don’t want to annoy someone who is that powerful in the business you are trying to break in to,” the man told the police officer. “The social sway he had was massive.”
After about an hour at the flat, things started to become “hazy” and he “conked out”, the man told the officer, saying this was “unusual”.
When he woke a few hours later, Spacey was kneeling on the floor, performing a sex act on him, it was alleged.
“Going to sleep isn’t something I would normally do – it is unusual in my behaviour just to conk out,” the complainant told the officer.
“I remember four to five hours later waking up – my belt was still together but my button and my zip were down and he’s just performed [a sex act] on me.”
Spacey ‘incredibly dismissive’
The alleged victim said he told Spacey “no” and “pushed” him off.
“My belt was still together but the rest of it was undone,” he told the officer about his trousers. He was “massively in shock”, the court heard.
Spacey then said it was “best” that he left and told him not to tell anyone, the man claimed.
Becoming emotional in his police interview, the man said he did not know how long the alleged sex offence went on for or exactly what happened while he was asleep.
Spacey was “incredibly dismissive” afterwards, he added.
The complainant said he later “completely buried” the alleged incident. Asked by the officer whether he thought about reporting it to police before he eventually did, he said he feared this could have affected his acting career, and that he might have been “slammed” by a “hotshot” lawyer of Spacey’s.
“It’s David and Goliath,” he told the police officer.
The man added that while “your gut tells you” that you are not “unique” and there might have been others, he did not have the “confidence” to come forward.
The alleged victim said he eventually found the confidence to report the incident when allegations were first made about the now disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in 2017.
‘Nothing happened that was consensual’
Under cross-examination from Spacey’s lawyer in court, the complainant answered questions about phone calls on the night of the alleged sexual offence. He denied a call after midnight, lasting 19 seconds, was Spacey calling him after he left the flat – earlier than his account of how long he was there on the night.
Mr Gibbs put it to the alleged victim that he had “upped and left” without any proper explanation after “intimate contact” between the pair.
The man denied this. “Nothing happened that was consensual”, he said.
Mr Gibbs later asked if the complainant questioned his sexuality after the alleged incident with the Hollywood actor. He denied this but said the incident had been a “confusing thing to come to terms with”.
Asked about his sexuality and if his way of processing a consensual act might have been to say it happened when he was asleep, the alleged victim said he found the line of questioning “reprehensible”.
Mr Gibbs then asked what the complainant would think of someone who engaged in a sexual act with someone solely in the “hope of advancing their career”. The man said this would be “abhorrent”.
He told the court that if he was attracted to men he would be happy to explore this, but he isn’t. “The only time I have experienced something sexual with a man is when I was sexually assaulted by that vile sexual predator,” the man said.
Spacey pleaded not guilty in July 2022 to four charges of sexual assault and one of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
In January this year, he pleaded not guilty to seven further charges – three counts of indecent assault, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.
The trial continues.
The Stone Roses bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield has died at the age of 63, his family has said.
Mani’s brother, Greg, said in a post on Facebook: “It is with the heaviest of hearts that I have to announce the sad passing of my brother.”
“RIP RKID,” he added.
Gary “Mani” Mounfield and his wife Imelda at the world premiere of “The Stone Roses : Made Of Stone” in 2013. Pic: Reuters
Formed in 1983, The Stone Roses were a mainstay of the “Madchester” scene.
Mani joined the band in 1987 and formed part of its classic line-up alongside singer Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire and drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren. He remained with the group until their split in 1996.
Mani’s death comes two years after that of his wife, Imelda Mounfield, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2020. The couple welcomed twin boys in 2012.
Ian Brown, left, with Mani, right, performing on stage during their 2012 reunion concerts in Manchester. Pic: Reuters
The Stone Roses frontman Brown shared a tribute online, writing: “REST IN PEACE MANi X.”
Oasis singer Liam Gallagher said he was “in total shock and absolutely devastated”, describing the bassist as “my hero”.
“RIP Mani – my heartfelt condolences to his twin boys and all of his family,” wrote the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, whose bandmate Rowetta added: “Back with your Imelda, Mani. Going to miss you so much. All my love to the boys, the family & all those who knew & loved him.”
The Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess, shared a photo of himself with Mani, writing alongside it: “I shared this photo a week or so ago on Mani’s birthday.
“It never failed to bring a smile to my face – and that was exactly the same for the man himself.
“One of the absolute best in every way – such a beautiful friend.”
Echo & the Bunnymen vocalist Ian McCulloch said Mani was someone “who I have always loved and always will love, deeply and forever. Like a brother”.
He continued: “I am in shock to be honest. Please tell me I’m just having a bad, bad dream. My thoughts and feelings and Mani. Love to all of his family from me”.
Pic: Robert Marquardt/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
The “Madchester” bands were known for blending indie with acid house, psychedelia, and pop.
The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album of 1989 was a huge success, and was named the second greatest album of all time in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian, and Classic FM.
The novel has survived the industrial revolution, radio, television, and the internet. Now it’s facing artificial intelligence – and novelists are worried.
Half (51%) fear that they will be replaced by AI entirely, according to a new survey, even though for the most part they don’t use the technology themselves.
More immediately, 85% say they think their future income will be negatively impacted by AI, and 39% claim their finances have already taken a hit.
Tracy Chevalier, the bestselling author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Glassmaker, shares that concern.
“I worry that a book industry driven mainly by profit will be tempted to use AI more and more to generate books,” she said in response to the survey.
“If it is cheaper to produce novels using AI (no advance or royalties to pay to authors, quicker production, retainment of copyright), publishers will almost inevitably choose to publish them.
“And if they are priced cheaper than ‘human made’ books, readers are likely to buy them, the way we buy machine-made jumpers rather than the more expensive hand-knitted ones.”
Chevalier, author of the book Girl With A Pearl Earring, with the painting of the same name. Pic: AP
Why authors are so worried
The University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy asked 258 published novelists and 74 industry insiders how AI is viewed and used in the world of British fiction.
Alongside existential fears about the wholesale replacement of the novel, many authors reported a loss of income from AI, which they attributed to “competition from AI-generated books and the loss of jobs which provide supplementary streams of income, such as copywriting”.
Some respondents reported finding “rip-off AI-generated imitations” of their own books, as well books “written under their name which they haven’t produced”.
Last year, the Authors Guild warned that “the growing access to AI is driving a new surge of low-quality sham ‘books’ on Amazon”, which has limited the number of publications per day on its Kindle self-publishing platform to combat the influx of AI-generated books.
The median income for a novelist is currently £7,000 and many make ends meet by doing related work, such as audiobook narration, copywriting or ghost-writing.
Read more: The author embracing AI to help write novels
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Could the AI bubble burst?
These tasks, authors feared, were already being supplanted by AI, although little evidence was provided for this claim, which was not possible to verify independently.
Copyright was also a big concern, with 59% of novelists reporting that they knew their work had been used to train AI models.
Of these, 99% said they did not give permission and 100% said they were not remunerated for this use.
Earlier this year, AI firm Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to settle a lawsuit which claimed the company stole their work.
The judge in the US court case ruled that Anthropic had downloaded more than seven million digital copies of books it “knew had been pirated” and ordered the firm to pay authors compensation.
However, the judge sided with Anthropic over the question of copyright, saying that the AI model was doing something akin to when a human reads a book to inspire new work, rather than simply copying.
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Most novelists – 67% – never used it for creative work, although a few said they found it very useful for speeding up drafting or editing.
One case study featured in the report is Lizbeth Crawford, a novelist in multiple genres, including fantasy and romance. She describes working with AI as a writing partner, using it to spot plot holes and trim adjectives.
“Lizbeth used to write about one novel per year, but now she can do three per year, and her target is five,” notes the author of the report, Dr Clementine Collett.
Is there a role for government?
Despite this, the report’s foreword urges the government to slow down the spread of AI by strengthening copyright law to protect authors and other creatives.
The government has proposed making an exception to UK copyright law for “text and data mining”, which might make authors and other copyright holders opt out to stop their work being used to train AI models.
“That approach prioritises access to data for the world’s technology companies at the cost to the UK’s own creative industries,” writes Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.
“It is both bad economics and a betrayal of the very cultural assets of British soft power.”
A government spokesperson said: “Throughout this process we have, and always will, put the interests of the UK’s citizens and businesses first.
“We’ve always been clear on the need to work with both the creative industries and AI sector to drive AI innovation and ensure robust protections for creators.
“We are bringing together both British and global companies, alongside voices beyond the AI and creative sectors, to ensure we can capture the broadest possible range of expert views as we consider next steps.”
Entertainment
Princess of Wales says her children were ‘very sad’ to miss Paddington at Royal Variety Performance
The Princess of Wales has admitted her children were “very sad” to miss the Royal Variety Performance in London, which she and the Prince of Wales attended.
Prince William and Kate made their first appearance at the event since her recovery from cancer.
Wednesday’s red carpet show at the Royal Albert Hall was headlined by the cast of Paddington The Musical.
After arriving and being presented with posies by nine-year-old twins Emelia and Olivia Edwards, the family of staff at a care home for entertainment industry workers, Kate asked if they were fans of Paddington Bear.
The Princess of Wales meets Emelia and Olivia Edwards. Pic: PA
The princess, wearing a green velvet gown, then told the girls that her children were “very sad” not to attend the show and added she had to tell them children were not allowed to go.
“My kiddies were very sad, we’re going to have to keep it a big secret that I saw you guys,” she said.
“They were very sad not to be joining us.”
It is the sixth time William and Kate have attended the annual charity event.
When Olivia told the prince, wearing a tuxedo, her favourite singer was Billie Eilish, he replied she had good taste.
He said: “It’s very nice to see you both. You’re very smiley, you two.”
The royals were also greeted on the red carpet by ITV board members and representatives from the Royal Variety Charity, of which the King is the royal patron.
Pics: PA
The Paddington cast were set to take to the stage on Wednesday evening, while pop star Jessie J and Grammy award-winning singer Laufey were also expected to perform.
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Jessie J attends the Royal Variety Performance. Pic: PA
Laufey at the event in London. Pic: PA
Held annually, the Royal Variety Performance was first staged in 1912 for King George V and Queen Mary in support of the charity, which helps those working in the entertainment industry.
Ahead of the show, its executive producer Giles Cooper said the charity was “thrilled” the prince and princess would “once again attend the Royal Variety Performance”.
Mr Cooper, also chairman of the charity, added: “This annual great British institution, viewed by a worldwide TV audience of over 150 million, continues to be a crucial fundraising event supporting people in all areas of performance, either on or off stage.
“In this pressurised world of working in the entertainment industry, our mental health initiative, started in 2024, has been a lifeline for many who are experiencing issues such as anxiety, depression or addiction.”
Pics: PA
On Tuesday, the princess called on businesses to value “time and tenderness just as much as productivity and success” in her first speech since she was diagnosed with cancer at the start of 2024.
Speaking at the Future Workforce Summit, Kate told 80 business leaders: “Every one of you interacts with your own environment; a home, a family, a business, a workforce, a community.
“These are the ecosystems that you yourselves help to weave. Imagine a world where each of these environments were built on valuing time and tenderness just as much as productivity and success.
“As business leaders, you will face the daily challenge of finding the balance between profitability and having a positive impact. But the two are not, and should not be incompatible.”
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