Kevin Spacey Grilled On Witness Stand, Denies Trying To “Seduce” Anthony Rapp’s Young Friend
18.10.2022 - 22:41
/ deadline.com
Kevin Spacey was back on the witness stand today in the trial of the $40 million sexual misconduct civil lawsuit filed by Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp. The American Beauty and The Usual Suspects Oscar winner faced cross-examination by Rapp’s attorneys in a Manhattan courtroom a day after threw out Rapp’s claim of emotional distress as the prosecution rested.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan began the morning by denying Rapp lawyer Richard Steigman’s motion to introduce another Spacey accuser to the jurors through a deposition the man gave that Kaplan previously had barred.
Spacey then spent the morning and early afternoon fielding questions in a cross often bogged down by defense objections. The much-accused actor, who cried on the stand Monday as he began his testimony, was composed today as he defended himself and his memory of long-ago events and insisted in court — as he had in past depositions — that his history with Rapp was “peripheral and limited.”
Steigman also asked Spacey about getting Rapp, then 14, and his friend John Barrowman — two under-age males — into the Limelight, a New York City nightclub where Barrowman, then 19, drank alcohol. Spacey said he couldn’t remember whether he bought Barrowman, who he was attracted to, a drink. Spacey testified — as he had done on Monday — that the trio went back to his apartment, where he playfully flirted with Barrowman and pushed him on to the bed in a moment Rapp was in the bathroom.
“You were trying to seduce him,” Steigman said.
“Not in that moment,” Spacey replied.
Both Barrowman and Spacey have testified that, with Rapp present, their flirtation went no further, and the two left. Spacey has denied Rapp’s claim that earlier he had invited Rapp back to the