Actor Anthony Rapp had remained silent for 31 years about his story, but after the accusations towards Harvey Weinstein empowered others to speak out on their stories on sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, Rapp decided it was time he too spoke out.
In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Rapp publicly alleged that actor Kevin Spacey had made sexual advances on him back in 1986, when Spacey was 26 years-old and Rapp was 14-years-old.
Rapp explained that he had gone to Spacey’s apartment for a party. After the party was done, Spacey had picked Rapp up, put him on his bed and then climbed on top of Rapp.
Spacey publicly apologized to Rapp on a Twitter post by saying, “I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”
In the same post, right after apologizing, Spacey came out of the closet as a gay man.
He wrote, “I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.”
The controversy of Spacey’s apologetic post in combination with the revelation of being gay has quickly become a topic of conversation.
“It was a way for him to come out and not look like a coward for doing what he did. Although I feel like Twitter wasn’t the place for an apology, he did apologize. I hope he meant that apology and did not just use it as a way to come out as a gay man,” Quran Smith, senior dance major at the University of the Arts, said.
Smith explained that everyone’s coming out experience is not the same.
“Some people are more private about coming out and some people are more public. I personally came out to my mom and continued to be myself. If people knew, they knew,” Smith said.
Others believe that Spacey’s coming out moment was a way for him to shield himself from the accusations. They say Spacey came out in attempt to gain privilege from members and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community while diverting blame. Coming out earned him the privilege of being defended from the accusations or applauded for coming out, instead of confronted.
“To me, he took the coward’s way out. I believe that apologies are something that should be done in person. It is almost as if going about it through Twitter was a way for Spacey to have a safety net of a screen. While I am not in Spacey’s head, it is almost as if he wanted to have a platform where maybe he thought some people would be on his side,” Emily Hill, junior Pre-K-4 education major, said.
“I cannot help but feel as though he thought him coming out at the same time would maybe make up for/lighten the fact that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy. It could almost be looked at as him saying that part of why he did what he did was because he is gay,” Hill said.
Chris Crocker, American Internet celebrity, blogger, songwriter and recording artist, expressed his opinion on the accusation towards Spacey on a public Instagram post.
“When issuing an apology for assault and talking about how you were drunk and don’t remember, you don’t just get to say ‘Oh, by the way, you guys, I’m gay’ and all is forgiven. Don’t use being LGBT as a shield now, in an apology, to overshadow an event. You know, in the LGBT community, we’re already fighting hard as it is to be taken seriously and there are all kinds of misconceptions of us, so to just very casually say, ‘Oh, and by the way, I’m gay,’ is so transparent,” Crocker said.
