NEW YORK — Actor Anthony Rapp’s lawyer asked a Manhattan jury Thursday not to believe Kevin Spacey’s Oscar-worthy performance on the witness stand — but to find him liable for preying on Rapp a teenage boy 36 years ago.
“When you’re rehearsed and a world-class actor and you’re following the scripts and following the testimony of someone else, you can take that stand and be perfectly polished,” Rapp’s attorney Richard Steigman said in Manhattan Federal Court.
The “Rent” star’s $40 million lawsuit accuses Spacey of coming on to him as he was starting out on Broadway when he was 14 years old. Rapp claims that Spacey, then 26, climbed on top of him in a sexually aggressive manner after a party at his Upper East Side apartment until Rapp squirmed away.
Steigman told jurors his client’s allegations might be unusual but that Spacey’s testimony was “tailored as perfectly as it could be” and was not to be believed.
Spacey vehemently denied the accusation and ever being alone with Rapp during his two days on the witness stand.
“Truth is messy — truth is complicated,” said Steigman. “Do you think you could make up a better story than that if that was your goal? ... You think maybe you’d want to add on a little bit, that ‘he touched me, with his hands in certain ways,’ or a little worse.”
Spacey’s lawyer Jennifer Keller hit back that Rapp is a 50-year-old man repeating a lie he fabricated at 14.
“This didn’t happen; it just didn’t happen,” said Keller. “We’re here because Mr. Rapp has falsely alleged abuse that never occurred at a party that was never held in a room that did not exist.”
Back in court after COVID-19 put her out of commission midway through the trial, Keller asked the jury not to consider Rapp’s claim in the context of the #MeToo movement.
Keller said the global reckoning with workplace sexual harassment and power imbalance “was necessary in a deeply misogynistic society.” But that Rapp had dishonestly tried to “hitch” a ride with “the Me Too wagon.”
“Women were not believed, no matter what,” said Keller. “The pendulum needed to swing away from that — and it did, thankfully, but it’s also not for you to decide whether it’s gone too far in the other direction. The one thing that I would say is this whole ‘believe the accuser, you always have to believe the accuser,’ has no place here either.”
Both sides spent considerable time talking about the first night Rapp and Spacey met when Rapp and his friend John Barrowman went to see “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” in which Spacey starred alongside Jack Lemmon.
After meeting backstage, the trio went for dinner and to the Limelight club. Spacey’s lawyers say he flirted with Barrowman, 19, at the nightspot and back at his place and that Rapp was jealous.
Rapp doesn’t remember — or dispute — going back to Spacey’s after the club, as Spacey said on the stand and Barrowman testified in a deposition. Rapp contends the encounter on the bed occurred several days later when Spacey invited him to a small gathering.
When Rapp first went public with the allegations in 2017, Spacey issued an apologetic statement and said he couldn’t remember it. At the trial, he said his publicists believed anything less would earn him a reputation as a “victim blamer.”
“I was being encouraged to apologize — and I’ve learned a lesson, which is never apologize for something you didn’t do,” the “American Beauty” actor testified. “I regret my entire statement.”
Jurors don’t know that more than 20 men have accused Spacey of sexual misconduct, or that he faces criminal charges in the U.K. He denies all allegations.
The jury is considering Rapp’s battery claim, because U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Kaplan said that if the jury believes Rapp, then they may discuss what damages he’s owed.
“You should not hesitate to change your opinion if you’re convinced it’s wrong or mistaken,” the judge told jurors before handing them the case.
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