Kevin Spacey Allegations: Trials, Settlement, and Documentary

Kevin Spacey has faced sexual misconduct allegations from more than 30 men, spanning incidents from the mid-1980s through the 2010s, and the allegations against him have produced criminal charges in the United States and the United Kingdom, multiple civil lawsuits, and roughly $31 million in arbitration losses tied to his firing from House of Cards. In every criminal and civil trial that reached a verdict, he has been acquitted or cleared. He settled three U.K. civil lawsuits in March 2026 before they went to trial.

How the Allegations Began

The first public accusation came on October 29, 2017, when actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26, Spacey invited him to a party at his New York apartment, and after other guests left, picked him up, placed him on a bed, and climbed on top of him. Rapp said he wriggled free and left.¹

Spacey responded the same night on Twitter. He said he did not remember the encounter but added that “if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”¹ In the same statement, he came out publicly as gay for the first time, writing, “I now choose to live as a gay man.” LGBTQ advocates criticized the pairing as a deflection that risked reinforcing tropes linking homosexuality with predatory behavior.²

The Wider Wave of Accusers

Within days, more men came forward. By early November 2017, USA Today had compiled 15 named and anonymous accusers, including filmmaker Tony Montana, who said Spacey groped him at a Los Angeles bar in 2003; actor Harry Dreyfuss, who described being groped in 2008; and former barman Kris Nixon, who alleged groping at a London party in 2008.³ Former bartender Daniel Beal alleged that Spacey exposed himself at a hotel in West Sussex in 2010.⁴ Norwegian author Ari Behn said Spacey groped him under a table after a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize concert.⁵

Police in London opened investigations into at least three allegations, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office began its own inquiries. A 1992 assault allegation from West Hollywood was declined for prosecution because the statute of limitations had expired.⁴

What the Old Vic Investigation Found

Spacey served as artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre from 2004 to 2015. On October 31, 2017, the theatre hired law firm Lewis Silkin and opened a confidential complaints process. The investigation uncovered 20 personal testimonies of alleged inappropriate behavior toward men, from making people feel uncomfortable to sexually inappropriate conduct. Sixteen of the 20 complainants were former staff members.⁶

More than half of the alleged incidents took place inside the theatre, but with one exception none had been raised with management at the time. The theatre acknowledged that a “cult of personality” around Spacey had discouraged junior staff from speaking up,⁷ and concluded he had “operated without sufficient accountability.” Spacey did not respond to the theatre’s invitation to participate.⁶

Career Collapse

Within days of the Rapp story, Netflix suspended production on the sixth season of House of Cards and fired Spacey. The series was retooled around Robin Wright, shortened from a planned 13 episodes to eight, and finished without him.⁸ Director Ridley Scott cut Spacey entirely from the nearly finished film All the Money in the World, replacing him with Christopher Plummer as J. Paul Getty. The reshoots ran nearly 400 shots over nine days in the U.K. and Italy, adding about $10 million to the $40 million budget, and the film still hit its December 2017 release date.⁹ A representative said in November 2017 that Spacey would seek “evaluation and treatment.”

The Nantucket Criminal Case

An 18-year-old busboy, son of former television news anchor Heather Unruh, alleged that in July 2016 at the Club Car in Nantucket, Massachusetts, Spacey plied him with alcohol and groped his genitals for several minutes. The young man had reportedly told Spacey he was 23.¹⁰ In December 2018, Spacey was charged with one felony count of indecent assault and battery, carrying up to five years in prison. He pleaded not guilty in January 2019.¹¹

The case collapsed over the accuser’s cellphone. The defense argued it contained exculpatory texts. At a pretrial hearing in July 2019, the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned about the missing device. The accuser’s mother had deleted data before turning it over to police, the lead investigator admitted he had not secured a signed receipt when the phone was returned, and the phone was later reported lost.¹⁰ Prosecutors dropped the charge on July 17, 2019, citing “the unavailability of the complaining witness.”¹¹

The Massage Therapist Lawsuit

In September 2018, an anonymous massage therapist filed a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles alleging that during an October 2016 session at Spacey’s Malibu home, Spacey forced him to grab his genitals, pulled him into a forced kiss, and would not let him leave. The suit brought claims of sexual battery and false imprisonment.¹²

The accuser died on September 6, 2019. The Los Angeles County District Attorney declined to file criminal charges in October 2019, saying the allegations “cannot be proved without participation of the victim.”¹³ The civil case was dismissed with prejudice in December 2019, and Spacey’s attorney said no money was paid to settle it.¹⁴

The Anthony Rapp Civil Trial

In September 2020, Rapp and a second accuser identified as “C.D.” sued Spacey in federal court in New York for assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rapp sought $40 million.¹⁵

At trial in October 2022, Spacey testified the encounter Rapp described “never happened” and said he “would never have been attracted to someone who was 14.” He also told the jury, “I’ve learned a lesson, which is never apologize for something you didn’t do.”¹⁶ His lawyers argued Rapp had fabricated or confused the account with a scene from a play. On October 20, 2022, after roughly 80 minutes of deliberation, the jury unanimously found Rapp had not proved his claims, and the judge dismissed the case.¹⁷

The London Criminal Trial

In May 2022, the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service charged Spacey with four counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, covering alleged incidents between 2005 and 2013. Seven more sexual assault counts were added in November 2022, bringing the total to 12 charges involving four male complainants.¹⁵

The trial at Southwark Crown Court ran nearly four weeks. Prosecutors called Spacey “a sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable,” alleging he had grabbed three men by the crotch and performed a sexual act on a man who was asleep or unconscious.¹⁸ Spacey pleaded not guilty, calling the charges “madness”; his defense described him as a “big flirt” who had engaged in consensual encounters or made “clumsy” passes. On July 26, 2023, after about 12 hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of all nine charges that reached deliberation, the original 12 having been narrowed during trial.¹⁹

The House of Cards Arbitration and Insurance Verdict

The largest financial hit came from the show itself. An arbitrator ruled in October 2020 that Spacey had violated MRC’s sexual harassment policy toward five crew members, breaching his acting and executive-producing agreements. The award to MRC was roughly $31 million, comprising $29.5 million in damages and about $1.5 million in legal fees.²⁰ A Los Angeles Superior Court judge confirmed the award in August 2022, saying Spacey’s lawyers had failed “to demonstrate that this is even a close case.”²¹

In early 2024, Spacey and MRC restructured the debt. The $31 million was reduced to $1 million, payable in installments of 10% of his after-tax income, in exchange for Spacey’s cooperation as a witness in MRC’s suit against its insurer, Fireman’s Fund, and for medical records supporting MRC’s theory that his departure was caused by illness (which MRC characterized as a sexual compulsive disorder).²⁰ That insurance trial took place in Santa Monica in March 2026. MRC sought $29 million in production losses under cast sickness coverage. The jury sided with Fireman’s Fund, finding Spacey’s alleged condition was not the primary reason for his departure and that MRC’s decision was a business call driven by bad publicity. Spacey himself disputed the sex addiction diagnosis during testimony.²²

The 2024 Documentary and Guy Pearce

In May 2024, Channel 4 aired the two-part documentary Spacey Unmasked, featuring allegations from 10 men not involved in the London criminal trial, all but one speaking publicly for the first time. Accounts spanned Spacey’s high school years through his House of Cards tenure and included allegations of forced sexual contact, exposure, and coercive behavior. Employees described the House of Cards set as a “hostile environment.”²³

Spacey called the documentary “one-sided” and said he had been given too little time to respond. He said he takes “full responsibility for my past behaviour” but “cannot and will not take responsibility or apologise to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me.”²⁴

In February 2025, Australian actor Guy Pearce alleged in The Hollywood Reporter that Spacey had “targeted” him during the 1997 filming of L.A. Confidential, calling Spacey “an aggressive man” who made him feel unsafe on set. Spacey denied the claim in a video posted to X and told Pearce to “grow up, you are not a victim.”²⁵

The 2026 U.K. Civil Settlement

Three British men sued Spacey at London’s High Court over alleged sexual assaults between 2000 and 2013. Two had been complainants in the 2023 criminal trial; the third, actor Ruari Cannon, waived his anonymity and alleged Spacey groped him at a party after the 2013 press night of Sweet Bird of Youth at the Old Vic.²⁶ One plaintiff alleged 12 assaults between 2000 and 2005; another alleged psychiatric damage and financial loss from a 2008 assault.²⁷

In March 2026, Spacey reached out-of-court settlements with all three men on undisclosed terms, and a court order dated March 13 stayed the proceedings, canceling a trial scheduled for October 2026.²⁸ Cannon separately reached a confidential settlement with the Old Vic itself in early March 2026, with no admission of liability by the theatre.²⁹ After the settlement, Spacey said: “Each time I have been given the time and a proper forum to defend myself, the allegations have failed under scrutiny and I have been exonerated.”²⁶

Where Spacey Stands Now

Legal costs left Spacey in financial distress. In a June 2024 interview with Piers Morgan, he said he was “millions of dollars in debt,” that his Baltimore waterfront condominium was being foreclosed on, and that he had “nearly had to file for bankruptcy a couple times but managed to dodge it.”³⁰ The property, originally bought for $5.6 million, sold at auction in July 2024 for $3.24 million.³¹

He has returned to acting through independent projects, crediting Italian director Franco Nero as the first filmmaker to cast him after 2017. As of mid-2025, he has appeared in the thrillers Peter Five Eight and 1780, and has a small part in the British conspiracy thriller The Awakening, which launched sales at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. At the Italian Global Series Festival in June 2025, he said he was “incredibly excited about going back to work in a substantial way.”³² Sharon Stone has said she “can’t wait to see Kevin back at work,” and Liam Neeson has said the industry “needs him and misses him greatly.”³³ Others in the industry remain opposed.

1
BuzzFeed News. Anthony Rapp: Kevin Spacey Made a Sexual Advance Toward Me When I Was 14
2
BBC. Kevin Spacey: LGBTQ Community Reacts to Coming Out Statement
3
USA Today. Kevin Spacey Scandal: A Complete List of Accusers
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BBC. Kevin Spacey: A Timeline of Allegations
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The Hollywood Reporter. Kevin Spacey Accuser Ari Behn Dead at 47
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BBC. Old Vic Theatre: 20 Allegations of Inappropriate Behaviour by Kevin Spacey
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The Washington Post. London Theater Uncovers 20 Allegations Against Kevin Spacey
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The Hollywood Reporter. Robin Wright on House of Cards Final Season Without Kevin Spacey
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The Hollywood Reporter. Ridley Scott Reveals How Kevin Spacey Was Erased From All the Money in the World
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ABC News. Sex Assault Charges Dropped Against Actor Kevin Spacey
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NPR. Prosecutors Drop Criminal Charges Against Actor Kevin Spacey
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Deadline. Kevin Spacey’s Accuser in Massage Therapist Case Dies
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Los Angeles Times. Kevin Spacey Sexual Assault Case Dismissed
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New York Times. Kevin Spacey Lawsuit by Accuser Dismissed
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Today. Kevin Spacey Controversies
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NPR. Kevin Spacey Anthony Rapp Verdict
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Variety. Kevin Spacey: Anthony Rapp Loses $40 Million Sexual Battery Lawsuit
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CNN. Kevin Spacey Trial Jury Verdict
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NPR. Kevin Spacey Sexual Assault Trial Verdict London
20
Deadline. Kevin Spacey Loses Arbitration to House of Cards Producer MRC
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BBC. Kevin Spacey Ordered to Pay House of Cards Makers $31 Million
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Variety. House of Cards Producer Loses $29 Million Trial Over Kevin Spacey
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Los Angeles Times. Kevin Spacey Unmasked Channel 4 Documentary
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The Guardian. Kevin Spacey Hits Back at Fresh Allegations in New Channel 4 Documentary
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BBC. Kevin Spacey Responds to Guy Pearce Allegations
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Variety. Kevin Spacey Settles With Sexual Assault Accusers Before London Trial
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BBC. Kevin Spacey Settles U.K. Civil Lawsuits
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NBC News. Kevin Spacey Settles U.K. Civil Lawsuits Over Alleged Sexual Assault
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The Guardian. Ruari Cannon Reaches Settlement With Old Vic Over Kevin Spacey Assault Allegations
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The Guardian. Kevin Spacey Baltimore Home Sold
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NME. Kevin Spacey Sells $5.6 Million Home at Reduced Price
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Deadline. Kevin Spacey Comeback Plans
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CNN. Kevin Spacey Fights for Career