Kevin Spacey Controversy: After Kevin Spacey Was Accused of Sexual Assault, the Studio Decided to Pay Him $31 Million in Damages.
Kevin Spacey has been ordered by an arbitrator to make restitution of about $31 million (or £23.2 million) to the Netflix production business for breach of contract as a result of allegations of sexual harassment made against him in the United States.
The choice was made behind closed doors a year ago, but it wasn’t until Monday that it was made public when the studio’s legal team petitioned the court to uphold the award. The actor has been the target of numerous allegations of sexual assault since 2017. He claims he didn’t do anything wrong.
He was one of the first well-known figures in Hollywood to be publicly accused of sexual behaviour following the Harvey Weinstein affair and as the #MeToo movement was gaining momentum.
When MRC and Netflix decided to fire Mr. Spacey from the show, the actor was eliminated from the House of Cards plot. The studio claimed it incurred a financial loss in the millions of dollars because it had already started production on the following season, according to reports from US media citing the arbitration documents.
In an effort to recover the costs, MRC filed the complaint in January 2019 and claimed that Mr. Spacey’s actions had broken the studio’s sexual harassment policy. The Northern District of California United States District Court received the case.
Variety’s sources claim that a secret arbitration hearing with testimony from more than 20 witnesses took place in February 2020 and lasted eight days. Furthermore, the 46-page judgement that was delivered five months later remains secret today.
On the other side, the petition that MRC filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday shows that the studio was victorious. The court ordered Mr. Spacey and his production companies, M. Profitt Productions and Trigger Street Productions, to pay damages as well as legal fees and costs.
He appealed the decision, but this month his appeal was turned down.
Mr. Spacey’s lawyer has declined to comment to US media organisations. Anthony Rapp, an actor, made the first public accusation of sexual misconduct against Mr. Spacey in October 2017. Rapp said that Spacey made advances toward him when he was just 14 years old. More sexual misconduct claims have now been made public.
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Mr Spacey issued a statement
In a statement, Mr Spacey asserted that he had no recollection of the incident but that he had extended to Mr Rapp “the most heartfelt apologies for what would have been very inappropriate intoxicated behaviour.”
Within the same statement, Mr. Spacey announced that he will henceforth spend his life as a gay man. Because he seemed to connect the alleged predatory behaviour with his homosexuality, his apology for it drew criticism.
He was accused of a number of things, including touching a kid while he was at a club in Massachusetts in 2016 and sexually assaulting a massage therapist in Malibu, California, in 2016. But ultimately, the civil lawsuit against him was dropped. The masseur died in 2019 before his lawsuit could be heard in court.
As a direct result of the allegations, Mr. Spacey was obliged to turn down numerous acting opportunities. However, he returned to the industry this year with a small role in a low-budget, independent Italian film directed by Franco Nero.
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