Anthony Rapp, the “Rent” and “Star Trek: Discovery” actor suing Kevin Spacey for an alleged sexual assault from 36 years ago, was fiercely cross-examined Wednesday by defense lawyers who drilled down on inconsistencies between Rapp’s version of the night in question, and the deposition of his then-friend.
Lawyers for Spacey also questioned Rapp’s motivations for suing, and emphasized that Spacey never said anything about sex, and did not try to remove Rapp’s clothes or touch him sexually during the 1986 encounter, according to pool reports from the New York civil trial.
Rapp has repeatedly said Spacey assaulted him after a party at his apartment, when Rapp was an ascending 14-year-old actor and 26-year-old Spacey was breaking out on Broadway. Rapp says a “drunk, swaying” Spacey swept him up like a groom “carrying a bride over a threshold” and laid him on a bed, pinning him and forcing him to escape by squirming away.
Rapp’s friend, in his late teens the time, had said in his own deposition that the night in question began backstage after Spacey’s performance, moved to a nightclub, and ended at an afterparty at Spacey’s Manhattan apartment, where the friend says he was also sexually propositioned by the older actor. Rapp had testified that the teens went home without incident after the post-show nightclub outing, and that the apartment party and assault took place some days later.
“You knew you had a problem with your story, correct?” Spacey attorney Jennifer Keller asked.
“I don’t dispute his story,” Rapp responded. “I just don’t remember it.”
Rapp testified last week that Spacey moved on him to “gratify his own sexual desires,” an encounter that left him shaken and with emotional distress that plagues him to this day. Rapp, who appeared in the original cast for the Broadway smash “Rent,” currently stars in “Star Trek: Discovery” for Paramount+. He is seeking compensation for emotional suffering, medical expenses and lost work.
While being questioned by his own lawyers Wednesday, Rapp said he was jolted when he saw Spacey appear in a movie he saw while still in high school – “I jumped out of my seat,” he said – and during a chance encounter in the bathroom at the 1999 Tony Awards: “I looked at him and he looked at me … I wanted very much to get away.”
Rapp, who concluded his testimony Wednesday, first made his allegations in an interview with Buzzfeed in 2017, and filed his lawsuit in 2020. The trial is expected to last no more than two weeks, and Spacey has indicated that he will testify in his own defense.
