The actors Anthony Rapp and Kevin Spacey both testified in a civil trial this month over accusations of an encounter in 1986, when Mr. Rapp was 14 and Mr. Spacey was 26. Mr. Rapp alleged that Mr. Spacey picked him up, put him on a bed and climbed on top of him, with Mr. Spacey’s groin pressing into the side of his hip. Mr. Spacey denied that the encounter ever happened.
The judge ultimately dismissed Mr. Rapp’s claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, so the trial then rested solely on a battery claim.
‘I knew something was really wrong’
Mr. Rapp said his encounter with Mr. Spacey happened after a party at Mr. Spacey’s Manhattan apartment in 1986, during a season in which both actors were performing on Broadway.
Mr. Rapp testified that after the other guests had left, Mr. Spacey showed up in the bedroom doorway, appearing unsteady on his feet and glassy-eyed. Mr. Spacey picked him up, Mr. Rapp testified, describing it like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. Then Mr. Spacey laid him down onto the bed and climbed on top of him, pressing his “full weight” into him, Mr. Rapp said.
“I knew something was really wrong now,” Mr. Rapp said, recalling feeling frozen in place.
Managing to wriggle out from under Mr. Spacey, Mr. Rapp testified, he shut himself into a nearby bathroom before making his way to leave the apartment.
Mr. Rapp also testified about how the encounter affected him, saying it was the “most traumatic event” of his life. Whenever he would see Mr. Spacey appear onscreen, Mr. Rapp testified, he would instantly recall the encounter from 1986. Watching Mr. Spacey’s character show sexual interest in a teenager in the film “American Beauty” was “unpleasantly familiar,” Mr. Rapp testified.
‘Never apologize for something you didn’t do’
When Mr. Spacey took the stand, he said he was confident that Mr. Rapp’s account was untrue when BuzzFeed News published it in 2017, but that publicists advised him to not dispute the story.
“I was being encouraged to apologize, and I’ve learned a lesson,” Mr. Spacey testified, “which is, never apologize for something you didn’t do.”
Mr. Spacey testified that he had never been alone with Mr. Rapp, and his lawyers tried to discredit Mr. Rapp’s account in various ways. They said that no one had come forward to confirm he or she attended the party that Mr. Rapp describes, and that Mr. Spacey was living in a studio apartment that did not have a separate bedroom.
A lawyer for Mr. Spacey, Jennifer L. Keller, also argued in court that Mr. Rapp had fabricated his story by borrowing details from “Precious Sons,” the Broadway play he was in that year. She said that in the play a character drunkenly mistakes his son, played by Mr. Rapp, for his wife, picking him up and lying on top of him in a way that mirrors Mr. Rapp’s allegations. Mr. Rapp said his encounter with Mr. Spacey was unrelated to the staging of the play.
Other witnesses
Each side had a forensic psychiatrist testify on its behalf after evaluating Mr. Rapp. Several days after one of them, Dr. Lisa Rocchio, testified that he had delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder, another, Dr. Alexander Bardey, said that he disagreed and that Mr. Rapp instead had features of narcissistic personality disorder.
Several witnesses testified that Mr. Rapp had told them about an encounter with Mr. Spacey in the years after he said it occurred.
Another accuser of Mr. Spacey, Andy Holtzman, testified that in 1981, Mr. Spacey groped his genitals and rubbed his groin on Mr. Holtzman, who was 27 at the time. Mr. Spacey denied the claim.
