Here Are Key Moments From Anthony Rapp’s Testimony

Topline

Actor Anthony Rapp continued testifying Tuesday in his $40 million civil sexual misconduct suit against Kevin Spacey, whom Rapp alleged touched him inappropriately and trapped him in an apartment in New York when he was 14 years old in 1986—here are the key moments from his testimony.

Kevin Spacey leaves the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on … [+] October 6, 2022 in New York City.

AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Rapp first took the stand on Friday at a federal courthouse in Manhattan, and explained that he first met Spacey in 1986 while backstage at a Broadway play the Oscar-winning actor was performing in.

Spacey invited Rapp and a friend out for dinner and to a nightclub, Rapp said Friday, and the actor later invited Rapp—who was also performing on Broadway at the time—to a party at his Manhattan home.

Not knowing anyone, Rapp said he went to watch TV in another room, but he testified Friday that Spacey—who Rapp said appeared to be intoxicated—later entered, grabbed Rapp’s buttocks and lifted him onto a bed before Rapp “wriggled out.”

Rapp “didn’t ask for” Spacey “to do that” and “didn’t want him to do that,” he said Friday.

During the second day of Rapp’s testimony Tuesday, Rapp said he continued to watch some of Spacey’s films because “they were by and large very acclaimed,” and that he and Spacey ran into each other at least twice after the encounter, including at the 1999 Tony Awards, where they did not acknowledge each other, according to Variety.

Spacey’s lawyer Jennifer Keller questioned him about a deposition given by Rapp’s friend John Barrowman about the night they met Spacey; Rapp allegedly did not include details about that night in his story that Barrowman did, and said “I don’t dispute his story. I just don’t remember it,” Deadline reported.

Crucial Quote

“I was frozen. I was pinned underneath him,” Rapp said Friday, according to Vulture. “He put his full weight onto my chest,” Rapp said. “He wasn’t fully parallel on me; it was a little bit of an angle. He was pressing his groin into my hip, the side of my hip.”

Tangent

A second Spacey accuser, Andy Holtzman, also testified Friday for the prosecution. He is not part of Rapp’s suit against Spacey. Holtzman claimed that in 1981 at The Public Theater when he was 27, Spacey “lifted me up by my crotch” and “pushed me back onto my desk.” Holtzman said he “could feel his erection on my body…near my groin.”

Key Background

Rapp was the first of more than two dozen Spacey accusers to come forward, detailing allegations against the actor in a 2017 Buzzfeed News interview. In response, Spacey said he did not remember the interaction with Rapp and apologized for what could have been drunken behavior. In his note, Spacey also came out as gay. Rapp filed his suit against Spacey in 2020, after New York passed the Child Victims Act in 2019. The suit initially included another accuser, who went by C.D. and alleged that when they were 14, Spacey engaged in sexual acts with the plaintiff against C.D.’s will. A judge ruled last year that C.D. could not be part of Rapp’s suit and remain anonymous. Spacey was also criminally charged with indecent assault and battery over an accuser in Nantucket, but the case was dropped in 2019. In June, Spacey was charged in the U.K. with four counts of sexual assault against three men, and one count of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” The actor said he’s “confident” he can “prove my innocence.” He later pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the next hearing is set for June 2023.

Big Number

$31 million. That’s how much Spacey was ordered to pay the producers of his former Netflix series House Of Cards by an arbitrator last year for breach of contract. When the allegations against Spacey surfaced, production was shut down and his character was written off the show. The judgment was upheld by a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana in August.