US actor Anthony Rapp told a New York courtroom Friday that he froze up when he was allegedly assaulted by Kevin Spacey as a minor in 1986, on the second day of the disgraced Oscar winner’s trial over the accusation.
Spacey, 63, has disappeared from public view after becoming one of the first stars to be caught up in the global #MeToo reckoning over sexual abuse.
Rapp told the court he was still an unknown actor when he met the “American Beauty” star, who was in his late 20s at the time.
Rapp, then 14, and friend and fellow actor John Barrowman, then 18, had seen a show starring Spacey in New York and went to greet the cast after the performance.
Spacey invited the two teens to dinner and then for a drink at a nightclub. A few days later, he invited them to a gathering of friends at his Manhattan studio.
Barrowman had since gone home to Illinois, so Rapp attended alone. Upon seeing that he did not know anyone there, he went to a bedroom to watch television.
He was sitting on the bed when he looked up and saw Spacey.
Spacey’s eyes were glazed over, and he told the younger actor he was drunk, Rapp told Judge Lewis Kaplan.
The teen realized that everyone else had gone.
“He approached me a little unsteady on his feet, picked me up as a groom carrying a bride over the threshold” and laid Rapp on the bed.
Spacey lay down next to Rapp and put his arms around the teenager, “pressing his groin” against his body.
“I felt that moment was very long. I felt frozen,” Rapp, now 50, said, his voice breaking.
Rapp said he managed to “wiggle his way” out and took refuge in the bathroom, where he made up his mind to go.
At the door, Spacey stopped him and asked if he was sure he wanted to leave.
“I didn’t remember the answer. I was thinking very much that I wanted to leave,” Rapp said.
Despite the “disturbing and threatening experience,” the “Star Trek: Discovery” star did not tell his mother anything because he did not want to talk about sex with her. He also did not want to worry her and was unsure whether Spacey had committed a crime.
Before Rapp took the stand, his lawyers called a former film industry employee named Andrew Holzman as their first witness.
Holzman said that Spacey had also sexually assaulted him, in 1981.
Rapp is seeking $40 million in damages. Spacey, whose full name is Kevin Spacey Fowler, has always denied allegations of sexual abuse.
The “House of Cards” star also has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault of three men between March 2005 and April 2013 in Britain, and in 2019, charges against the actor of indecent assault and sexual assault were dropped in Massachusetts.
