Kevin Spacey's accuser: 'He rubbed his groin in my face next to children at a ... trends now

Kevin Spacey launched a fightback this weekend against a slew of new allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour, declaring that he will ‘no longer be speechless’.

During an astonishing 95-minute interview posted on X, formerly Twitter, the double Oscar winner admitted making ‘clumsy passes’ at people who were not interested in him – but vehemently denied illegal conduct or abusing his position.

Yesterday, in another extraordinary development, the fallen Hollywood star posted an email online that he suggested showed how an accuser who alleges sexual misconduct in the late 1990s was still ‘chasing’ him for a role in one of his films in 2011.

Speaking to former GB News presenter Dan Wootton, Spacey, 64, said: ‘I take full responsibility for my past behaviour and my actions, but I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologise to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me.

‘I’ve never told someone that if they give me sexual favours, then I will help them out with their career, never.

‘I’ve clearly hooked up with some men who thought they might get ahead in their careers by having a relationship with me. But there was no conversation with me, it was all part of their plan, a plan that was always destined to fail, because I wasn’t in on the deal.’

The emotionally charged interview, recorded over a video call and posted online last Friday night, is the first time Spacey has publicly addressed, in detail, these new allegations of sexual misconduct. His denials come as a two-part Channel 4 documentary, entitled Spacey Unmasked, is set to broadcast the testimony of ten men who make new allegations of unwanted sexual behaviour spanning almost 40 years. The film, which The Mail on Sunday has seen, alleges Spacey:

l Groped a 21-year-old man in highly intimate and invasive way before whispering: ‘Don’t worry about it’;

l Pleasured himself in front of an aspiring actor, who was a former US Marine, while watching the traumatic opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan;

l Pushed his groin into the face of an employee at the Old Vic theatre in London during a performance of the pantomime Cinderella;

l Exposed himself to an intern in the bathroom of a bar and put his hand on the penis of a fellow actor on the set of hit TV series House Of Cards.

Once one of Hollywood’s most critically acclaimed stars – winning Oscars for his roles in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty – Spacey has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct since 2017.

In July last year, Spacey faced trial at Southwark Crown Court over nine sexual offences charges in a case involving four men. He vehemently denied their claims and the jury acquitted him of all charges.

The previous year a jury in a US civil case also found in his favour, dismissing claims brought by the actor Anthony Rapp, who was the first man to make allegations against Spacey in 2017. The MoS has learnt that those interviewed in the Channel 4 documentary, which will be broadcast tomorrow and Tuesday, include three British men whose claims were not the focus of last year’s criminal trial.

These allegations relate to Spacey’s time as artistic director at the Old Vic between 2003 and 2015. Under his tutelage, the once struggling theatre became the hottest ticket in town, as well as a thriving creative community.

Among the most shocking allegations are those made by former actor Ruari Cannon, named by the i newspaper yesterday after he waived his anonymity.

He claimed Spacey groped him in June 2013 at an after-show party of Old Vic’s production of Sweet Bird Of Youth.

Mr Cannon, who was 21 when he landed a role in the play starring Sex And The City’s Kim Cattrall, said he was ‘pulled in close’ by Spacey who then ‘put his left hand down by my bum and he stuck his middle finger as far up me as possible... just tried to go up through my boxers, up inside me.’

He ‘totally froze’, while Spacey, ‘pulled me in closer’ and ‘in my ear, he whispered, “don’t worry about it”’. Afterwards, Mr Cannon recalls, Spacey disappeared ‘just like a shark, just moved straight through and into Kevin Spacey mode at a press night’.

 Mr Cannon, who also appeared in the film World War Z alongside Brad Pitt, is understood to have first made his allegation to a reporter from the i newspaper in October 2017 but felt too worried about the potential impact on his life and career to reveal anything publicly at the time.

But now, having left the profession, he wants people to hear his story, it is claimed.

Speaking to the i yesterday, Mr Cannon said the alleged incident, which he said took place in The Savoy hotel, affected his self-worth, trust in other people and his desire to continue acting. Spacey denied the allegation in his interview with Wootton, saying it would have been witnessed by dozens of photographers if it had happened.

‘This makes no sense. It’s ridiculous and it never happened.’

Another Old Vic employee – named as Danny De Lillo in The Telegraph yesterday – told the documentary that he had an interaction with Spacey while working as an usher during the theatre’s production of Cinderella. He said he was sitting in a tiny space by the stalls when Spacey came in and wedged his body into the gap before ‘pushing his groin into his face. The pantomime is going on with families and children and I could smell him. I froze just in a way that I couldn’t move and I just felt so small.’

Danny, who claims the star touched him inappropriately on other occasions, said he began dreading going into work.

‘I just thought what have I done to deserve this. How can he get on stage.

‘How can he sleep at night. It’s such an invasion of a human being. I just felt like a piece of meat.’ He did not feel he could speak out – until now. ‘This was a tiny

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