‘House of Cards’ employees say Kevin Spacey sexually harassed them, too
Eight "House of Cards" employees have come forward to accuse Kevin Spacey of sexual harassment and assault.
Eight “House of Cards” employees have come forward to accuse Kevin Spacey of sexual harassment and assault.
The employees of the Netflix drama told CNN that Spacey’s behavior created a “toxic” work environment, especially for young men. One former production assistant described the behavior as “predatory” and recalled one day when he had been assigned to drive out to pick up Spacey.
When they were almost to the set, while the car was still moving, Spacey allegedly put his hand down the assistant’s pants.
“I was in a state of shock,” the assistant said. “He was a man in a very powerful position on the show and I was someone very low on the totem pole and on the food chain there.”
The production assistant asked that the rest of what happened in the car remain undisclosed in order to protect his identity, though he did say that Spacey later cornered him in his trailer and made inappropriate contact with him.
–Kevin Spacey responds to accusation of sexual assault by revealing he’s gay–
“I told him, ‘I don’t think I’m ok with this, I don’t think I’m comfortable with this,'” the production assistant said, adding that Spacey became “visibly flustered” and then left for the rest of the day.
“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 said. “It was a toxic environment for young men who had to interact with him at all in the crew, cast, background actors.”
Another crew member who worked on “House of Cards” said that Spacey would touch and harass him often.
“He would put his hands on me in weird ways,” the crew member said. “He would come in and massage my shoulders from behind or put his hands around me or touch my stomach sometimes in weird ways that in normal everyday conversation would not be appropriate.”
A former camera assistant corroborated the stories, saying that while he had never been harassed by Spacey, “everybody saw” what was happening.
“All the crew members commented on his behavior,” the former camera assistant said. “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.”
A female production assistant claimed that her male friends on set complained to her about it.
“It was very known that Kevin was inappropriate, and males I worked with complained to me about how they felt uncomfortable,” she said. “Kevin does this thing which was play fights with them in order to touch them.”
The accusations follow a shocking story from Anthony Rapp in which the actor opened up about the sexual assault that Spacey committed against him when he was just 14. Netflix has since suspended production on “House of Cards” and has announced that the show will not run for another season after this one.
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