A new accusation of sexual misconduct against actor Kevin Spacey allegedly took place while the teen victim’s father was in the same apartment as the disturbing alleged act took place. The father is Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss, and the alleged victim is his son, actor Harry Dreyfuss, whose account of the incident BuzzFeed published this week.
After BuzzFeed published on October 29 the accusations of actor Anthony Rapp, who accused Spacey of trying to force himself on him in 1986 when Rapp was just 14-years-old, Spacey has faced a flood of similar accusations. On Wednesday, Spacey’s attorney said the actor “absolutely denies the allegations” but was seeking “evaluation and treatment.”
Saturday, Harry Dreyfuss presented his own account of an alleged incident that, if true, reveals the stunning degree of Spacey’s boldness in his alleged predatory behavior. BuzzFeed notes that it “verified with five people — including his father, and his brother Ben — that Dreyfuss shared this story with them, and his father confirmed he was present for the night in question.”
“When I was an 18-year-old senior in high school, Kevin Spacey groped me,” Dreyfuss begins. “It was 2008, and he was directing my father, Richard Dreyfuss, in a play called Complicit at the Old Vic in London. I’d come to visit for Christmas Break. It happened one night when the three of us were alone in Kevin’s apartment rehearsing my father’s lines. My father didn’t see, and I didn’t tell him about the incident for many years. Instead, I spent the next nine years telling people the story at parties for laughs.”
Dreyfuss says that when he first met Spacey, the famous actor’s “eyes lit up” and instead of a handshake, he hugged the 18-year-old. When his father had a read-through at Spacey’s apartment a few days later, Dreyfuss writes, Spacey allegedly made clear his intentions through a series of increasingly more aggressive actions.
When Dreyfuss and Spacey were alone, claims Dreyfuss, Spacey found an excuse to hold his hand and encourage him suggestively not to be “shy”:
We were in Kevin’s kitchen when my dad ducked out for a moment to go to the bathroom. Kevin and I were looking out his window at the lights of London, when he came to my side and asked me how my Christmas had been. I had had a terrible Christmas, I told him, because I was too shy. I was 18, I’d mustered the courage to leave our hotel and go get legally drunk for the first time in my life, but I didn’t have the nerve to speak with anyone. Instead, I had a few drinks and then promptly returned to my hotel room to watch Tropic Thunder for the fourth time. After I’d told him that, Kevin slid his hand into mine. He wrapped his fingers between my fingers, and peered into my eyes, and warmly said, “Don’t be shy.” Then, “You’ll get over it.” I was stunned.
When Richard Dreyfuss returned from the restroom, the three moved into the living room to read through the script, with Kevin sitting “extremely close” to the young actor on the couch, while his father sat in a big chair on the side of the room. Dreyfuss says that’s when Spacey first put his hand on his thigh:
After a few minutes, he put his hand on my thigh. Finally (finally, finally) I became suspicious. It took that long because it just never occurred to me that Kevin would be interested in me in the first place. He was an adult man, a hero of mine, my dad’s boss, none of which were categories on my radar for sexual interactions. Besides, I thought, Surely he can’t be coming on to me like this right in front of my dad. But his hand stayed there. So after a bit, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant safety tactic: I stood up and walked to the other side of the couch, and sat back down. Bulletproof. But without missing a beat, Kevin stood up too, and followed me. He sat just as close and immediately put his hand back on my thigh.
Harry underscores that his father “saw none of this and none of what would follow, because he was deeply focused on his script,” which Buzzfeed notes they confirmed. “I was unable to process what was happening: My dad and I were pretending to be lovers in a play while Kevin Spacey was trying to seduce me and all the while in real life I was a hapless, straight virgin who just wanted to become a famous actor.”
Harry says he stood up again and then retook his place on the couch, hoping Spacey would finally get the message. He even put his own hands down on his thighs to block them, “claiming that territory for myself.” Instead of getting the message, writes Dreyfuss, he went even further:
Once again Kevin followed me, sat down, and with considerable effort, slid his hand between my right hand and my right leg. He’d snuck in. At this point I didn’t think there was anything I could do short of alerting my dad to what was happening. But I didn’t want to start a feud between them. I didn’t want the play to be threatened. This job really mattered to my dad, and Kevin was his boss. And besides, I thought, He isn’t really doing anything wrong. …
And then he did. Over the course of about 20 seconds, centimeter by centimeter, Kevin crawled his hand from my thigh over toward my crotch. My mind went blank. Suddenly, he had completed his journey and now he had all of me in his hand. I stopped reading the script and my eyes went wide. I lifted up my head and faced him. Looking into his eyes, I gave the most meager shake of my head that I could manage. I was trying to warn him without alerting my dad, who still had his eyes glued to the page. I thought I was protecting everyone. I was protecting my dad’s career. I was protecting Kevin, who my dad surely would have tried to punch. I was protecting myself, because I thought one day I’d want to work with this man. Kevin had no reaction and kept his hand there. My eyes went back to the script and I kept reading.
Dreyfuss says that he has no idea how long Spacey groped him, saying it could’ve been 20 seconds or 5 minutes, and notes that he cannot remember how the evening ended except that he was sure not to tell his father, though he finally did four or five years later. “He was furious, and I spent the rest of the evening ensuring him that it wasn’t a big deal, and that I would be mortified if he did anything about it,” said Harry.
Harry explains that he told the story to several people “as a joke” so that he would not have to face that he was a “victim” of a man he once admired. But when he told a few people in the New York theater scene, he found that several said they had heard of Spacey doing similar things to other young men.
“As I write this, 10 people, including actor Anthony Rapp, have come forward with their own allegations, which points to a pattern — Kevin Spacey is a sexual predator. But I still never thought talking about it seriously was ever an option,” said Dreyfuss. He concludes by saying he hopes that telling his story will “serve as inspiration to others who may have felt that they couldn’t or shouldn’t speak up until now.”
On Friday, Netflix announced that it was officially cutting ties with Spacey, issuing a statement making clear that the embattled actor would not be involved in another season of House of Cards, should it continue, and that the company would no longer be moving forward with another project, Gore, which was in post-production and was produced by and starred Spacey.
H/T Rachel Mullen