“He is a genius,” Stone said.
In 2017, allegations of sexual misconduct against Kevin Spacey began pouring out, effectively bringing his career to a halt. Spacey has denied all the allegations and juries have ruled in his favor on the cases that have made it to court, but he hasn’t been welcomed back to Hollywood. Now, following the release of Spacey Unmasked, a documentary featuring interviews with ten of Spacey’s accusers, some actors are coming to his defense. Sharon Stone, Liam Neeson, Stephen Fry, and F. Murray Abraham told The Telegraph they would all like to see Spacey acting again.
The accusations against Spacey began in 2017 when Anthony Rapp alleged that Spacey made an “unwanted sexual advance” toward him in 1986, when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. When Rapp sued Spacey in 2020, he described the incident, claiming the actor grabbed his buttocks, lifted him onto a bed, and lay on top of him. Spacey has maintained that he can’t remember the incident, attributing it to “what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” A jury found Spacey “not liable” for the allegations in 2022. A year later, Spacey stood trial in the U.K. for nine accusations of sexual assault from four men, where he was found not guilty.
Now, certain A-listers believe Spacey deserves to be welcomed back to Hollywood. “I can’t wait to see Kevin back at work,” Stone told The Telegraph. “He is a genius. He is so elegant and fun, generous to a fault and knows more about our craft than most of us ever will.” She added that she feels his accusers are “blaming him for not being able to come to terms with themselves for using him and negotiating with themselves because they didn’t get their secret agendas,” whatever that means. Meanwhile, Neeson told the publication that he “was deeply saddened” about the accusations against Spacey. Calling Spacey “a good man” and “a man of character,” he asserted that “our industry needs him and misses him greatly.” Abraham, who was reportedly fired from Mythic Quest following accusations of sexual misconduct in 2022, asked, “Who are these vultures who attack a man who has publicly accepted his responsibility for certain behavior, unlike so many others? ” He added, “I vouch for him unequivocally.”
Apparently, Spacey and his supporters feel the new documentary is unfair. Fry told The Telegraph that to “bracket [Spacey] with the likes of Harvey Weinstein” and “to continue to harass and hound him, to devote a whole documentary to accusations that simply do not add up to crimes … How can that be considered proportionate and justified?” Spacey also slammed the documentary, telling Dan Wootton earlier this month that he would like to return to acting, but “Nobody in Hollywood has ever presented a path back for me.” He added, “It seems that some are content with just canceling me forever. It’s a life sentence.”
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