Kevin Spacey in 2019 leaving a Massachusetts court where he was charged
American actor Kevin Spacey must be the creator of the Netflix series House of Cards pay more than $26 million for damages suffered by the company as a result of Spacey’s dismissal for sexual misconduct.
An arbitration decision upheld by the Los Angeles court found that Spacey breached his contract by “conducting employees in each of the five seasons of House of Cards in which he starred and of which he was executive producer”.
Anthony Rapp
Spacey was discredited in 2017 for allegedly assaulting actor Anthony Rapp in 1986. That would have happened when the then 14-year-old Rapp was at a party with Spacey.
Two days after this news became known, Netflix put the recordings of the sixth season of House of Cards quietly, “to review the situation and address possible concerns of the actors and staff”.
Spacey won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in ‘House of Cards’ in 2015.
Series contributors told CNN shortly afterwards that Spacey regularly made sexually explicit and abusive comments and had groped young male colleagues.
Production company MRC was forced to write Spacey’s character from the sixth season and reduce the number of episodes from thirteen to eight. That cost the company tens of millions, according to the court document.
End of career for now
With the accusation of Rapp, the successful career of 62-year-old Spacey came to an end for the time being. He apologized to Rapp, but there was nothing left to salvage, especially after more allegations of sexual misconduct followed.
So far there has been no conviction. Rapp’s case foundered in court and a Massachusetts prosecutor dropped a man’s assault charges by Spacey for lack of evidence.
