NEW YORK — During his third day on the witness stand, an emotional Anthony Rapp on Wednesday said he chose to publicly reveal a decades-old traumatic encounter between him and Kevin Spacey because he did not believe he was alone.
Describing the alleged incident at the heart of his $40 million lawsuit as “the most traumatic single event in my life,” Rapp said speaking about it continued to trigger painful memories.
“Why did you come forward?” asked his lawyer Peter Saghir.
“I came forward because I was not the only one Kevin Spacey made sexual advances to,” Rapp said.
Manhattan Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan struck the answer from the record, and instructed the jurors not to consider it in their deliberations.
Jurors in Rapp’s case have not heard that since late 2017, more than 20 men have accused Spacey of sexual misconduct ranging in severity from groping to sexual assault and rape — or that he faces criminal charges in the U.K.
Rapp has accused Spacey of picking him up and laying him on a bed after a gathering at the older actor’s Upper East Side apartment in 1986 when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. He claims Spacey lay on top of him for about 30 seconds with “dead weight” until the teen squirmed out from under and fled the apartment.
Rapp completed his testimony Wednesday, after five hours of cross-examination by Spacey’s lawyer Jennifer Keller over two days.
The lawyer for the “American Beauty” actor challenged Rapp on what emotional damage he suffered from the incident and probed him about his sexual history.
“Kevin Spacey has affected your life and your relationship with intimacy and your relationship with sex,” said Keller. “That’s your claim, isn’t it?”
“That’s part of my claim, yes,” said Rapp.
Rapp said one early consequence of the incident was that it had made him hyperaware of sexual attention from a young age.
“Don’t you think that as males go through puberty ... they develop an intense interest in sex?” asked Keller during one tense line of questioning. “Come on, Mr. Rapp.”
“It’s not that simple,” later responded Rapp.
Spacey has denied the incident, claiming he does not remember it. The actor is expected to take the stand in the coming days.
