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After Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of making a pass at him, a top theater director in London told BBC radio Monday that there had been “concerns” about Spacey in the industry for years.
During a discussion on sexual misconduct on Radio 4’s Today show, Victoria Featherstone, artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre, was asked if she was aware of any stories about Spacey when he was working in London as artistic director of the Old Vic. “I think that many people in the theater and in the creative industries have been aware of many stories of many people over a lot of years, and Kevin Spacey would be one of the people that people have had concerns about, yes,” she replied, The Independent reported.
Featherstone said that after the recent slew of Harvey Weinstein allegations there has been an “opening of the floodgates,” creating “a very important moment for us all throughout society, not just in our industry.”
She added: “We have a culture across society which has accepted this…. It’s deep in our DNA to accept these behaviors. And it’s only now that we’re finding the vocabularies and the confidence and the means to have these conversations.”
Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner, responded to Rapp’s allegations of the sexual advances when he was 14 years old, saying that he was “beyond horrified to hear his story,” while emphasizing that he did not remember the incident. “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years,” he said.
Rapp had said that he was at a party at Spacey’s apartment when he was 14 and the then 26-year-old Spacey was inebriated, picked him up, placed him on his bed and climbed on top of him.
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