Kevin Spacey Praised & Defended By Liam Neeson, Sharon Stone, & Stephen Fry In Wake Of Biting UK Documentary & New Trial; “Our Industry Needs Him,” Says ‘Taken’ Star
Kevin Spacey is facing another sexual assault trial in the UK next year, but today the two-time Oscar winner saw some major star power in his corner.
Liam Neeson, Sharon Stone and Stephen Fry have come forward with unequivocal support for Spacey as the much-accused actor has been back in the spotlight via new Channel 4 docuseries with even more allegations of severe misconduct.
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“I was deeply saddened to learn of these accusations against him,” Taken franchise star Neesom told the Telegraph today. “Kevin is a good man and a man of character. He’s sensitive, articulate and non-judgmental, with a terrific sense of humour. He is also one of our finest artists in the theatre and on camera.
“Personally speaking, our industry needs him and misses him greatly,” Neeson, no total stranger to controversy himself, concluded.
Basic Instinct star Stone told the UK broadsheet: “I can’t wait to see Kevin back at work. He is a genius. He is so elegant and fun, generous to a fault and knows more about our craft than most of us ever will.”
Addressing the claims of assault and more that Spacey has fought against in and out of court since 2017, past Oscar nominee Stone added: “It’s terrible that they are blaming him for not being able to come to terms with themselves for using him and negotiating with themselves because they didn’t get their secret agendas.”
Some of those so-called agendas against Spacey, who has won most of the sexual misconduct suits against him over the past several years or seen them shuttered due to deaths and more, were unveiled in Channel 4’s May 4 debuting Spacey Unmasked. The Katherine Haywood directed series, which launched on Max in the U.S. earlier this week, tracks claims from a number of men against Spacey from the beginning of his career up to his stint as the scheming President Frank Underwood on Netflix’s House of Cards.
“I take full responsibility for my past behavior and my actions,” Spacey said earlier this month in an online interview with ex-GB News presenter Dan Wootton. With language that he was been using since the first accusations against him were made in 2017, Spacey added: “But I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologize to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me.”
Spacey has also said that he was not given the needed time to fully respond to the claims in Spacey Unmasked.
To that, today’s remarks from Neeson, Stone and others clearly are a coordinated attempt by Spacey and his representatives to reframe the narrative they fear the docuseries is laying out – despite the victories Spacey has had in the courts.
Whispered about for years, Spacey came out “as a gay man” in October 2017 in an ill-considered knee-jerk response to Star Trek: Discovery actor and Broadway star Anthony Rapp’s assertion that the older and more established actor made unwelcomed sexual advances to him back in 1986. Making the allegations all the more inflammatory was the fact that Rapp was 14 years old at the time of the purported incident in Spacey’s NYC apartment.
Alhough kneecapping Spacey’s career at the time, Rapp’s claims quickly were tossed out by a Manhattan jury in a $40 million sexual misconduct suit against the ex-Old Vic artistic director in 2022.
To that end, Spacey himself spoke to the almost-Jeff Zucker-owned Telegraph as did Fry, The White Lotus’ F. Murray Abraham — the Oscar winner called Spacey’s accusers “vultures” — and theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn.
A virtual national treasure in Britain, Fry made a point of noting that while Spacey has been “clumsy” and “inappropriate” in his conduct over the years, it is unfair “to continue to harass and hound him, to devote a whole documentary to accusations that simply do not add up to crimes.” Fry added, “How can that be considered proportionate and justified?”
“Surely it is wrong to continue to batter a reputation on the strength of assertion and rhetoric rather than evidence and proof?” the Red, White and Royal Blue actor went on to say of Spacey and his run through the gauntlet of the courts on both sides of the Atlantic. “Unless I’m missing something, I think he has paid the price.”
Spacey was found not guilty in July 2023 in the UK of nine charges, including sexual assault. The claims were alleged to have been committed between 2001 and 2013 and relate to four separate men.
In February 2024, the $31 million the courts awarded to House of Cards producers Media Rights Capital over the collapse of the show due to the allegations against Spacey was slashed to $1 million. The reduced fee saw the actor turn witness for MRC against the insurance companies
As the legal tide turned in the past couple of years in favor of the American Beauty and The Usual Suspects Oscar winner, Spacey began to pick up small roles here and there, like some voice-over in last year’s Welsh thriller Control. In October of last year, Spacey was awarded a standing ovation after a short Shakespeare performance at an Oxford University conference on cancel culture. Yet, the reportedly near-broke actor has done himself no favors with odd annual Christmas appearances as the conniving Underwood the past six years, including a rambling sit-down with Tucker Carlson in 2023.
Last week, it was announced Spacey will face a civil trial in the UK in 2025 from a man who says he was sexually assaulted by the actor years beforehand.
The trial was a result of Spacey’s barristers successfully challenging a verdict against their client after the actor and his legal representatives screwed up and didn’t show up on a previous date to face the charges. “This is not a new lawsuit,” Spacey said to Deadline’s Max Goldbart in a statement on May 7. “As has been widely reported, it’s the same lawsuit brought in 2022 by a complainant that was not believed by a jury of my peers in the 2023 UK criminal trial, in which I was acquitted.”
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