‘House of Cards’ Employees Accuse Kevin Spacey of Sexual Assault and Harassment

A former production assistant on House of Cards told CNN that Kevin Spacey had sexually assaulted him “during one of the show’s early seasons.” According to the assistant, Spacey put his hands down the production assistant’s pants while driving to the show’s set. The alleged advance was unwanted, and the assistant had previously reported Spacey for sexual harassment. “I have no doubt that this type of predatory behavior was routine for him and that my experience was one of many and that Kevin had few if any qualms about exploiting his status and position,” he told CNN. “It was a toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors.”

CNN spoke to multiple other current and former crew members who reiterated this description. “All the crew members commented on his behavior,” one former camera assistant told CNN. “What gets me is we have to sign sexual harassment paperwork before the start of the show and apparently [Kevin Spacey] doesn’t have to do anything and he gets away scott-free with this behavior.”

In a statement, House of Cards producer Media Rights Capital said that it has opened an anonymous complaint hotline to investigate any further misconduct. Netflix also released a statement:

Netflix was just made aware of one incident, five years ago, that we were informed was resolved swiftly. On Tuesday, in collaboration with MRC, we suspended production, knowing that Kevin Spacey wasn’t scheduled to work until Wednesday. Netflix is not aware of any other incidents involving Kevin Spacey on-set. We continue to collaborate with MRC and other production partners to maintain a safe and respectful working environment. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the production, and have nothing further to share at this time.

Since Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of sexual misconduct in an interview with BuzzFeed News on Sunday, several others have come forward with allegations involving Spacey. On Thursday, Vulture published an anonymous interview with a man who alleges that he and Spacey had a sexual relationship in 1986, when he was 14 and Spacey was 24. In the interview, the man says that the relationship ended when he was 15 years old, after Spacey attempted to rape him in his New York apartment. “I always have said, ‘He tried to rape me,’” he told Vulture. “I told him I didn’t want that, he went again to do it, I told him no, he went again and pushed harder and grabbed me and pushed harder. I don’t know how I would see that as anything besides an attempted rape, which I was able to thwart.”

Also on Thursday, a former employee of the Old Vic theater in London, where Spacey was an artistic director for 11 years until 2015, told The Guardian that the theater’s management and employees consistently ignored Spacey’s behavior during his tenure. “We were all involved in keeping it quiet,” the former employee said. “I witnessed him groping men many times in all sorts of different situations.” Earlier in the week, actor Roberto Cavazos relayed a similar story relating to the Old Vic. Posting on Facebook, he wrote that he recalled Spacey “squeezing whoever caught his attention” at the Old Vic’s bar, and that he had a “couple of unpleasant encounters with Spacey that were on the edge of being called harassment.”

Additionally, two other men have spoken up with their own allegations of Spacey’s harassment. Director Tony Montana told Radar on Tuesday that Spacey groped him at a Los Angeles bar in 2003. Another man—who asked not to be identified—told the BBC on Wednesday that when he was a teen in the 1980s, he woke up to Spacey lying on top of him. Spacey had invited the then-teenager to stay at his apartment in New York over the weekend, but when Spacey asked if they could share the bed, he declined and instead slept on the sofa. When he woke up, Spacey’s arms were around him. “I was uncomfortable at best, traumatized at worst,” he said.

Spacey addressed Rapp’s allegations in a statement on Twitter on Sunday night, saying that he does not remember the encounter but apologized for “deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

As for the other allegations, a lawyer for Spacey “absolutely” denied the allegations of attempted rape made in the Vulture interview; however, neither Spacey nor anyone from his team have addressed the accusations made in The Guardian, Radar, or the BBC. On Wednesday, a representative of Spacey told Variety that the actor is seeking “evaluation and treatment,” though further details were not provided. In the wake of the allegations, Netflix announced that House of Cards would be ending after its sixth season, and then suspended production on the show indefinitely so that the company could take “time to review the current situation and to address any concerns of our cast and crew.”

This piece has been updated with additional information after publication.