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Anthony Rapp is getting candid about the effects of Kevin Spacey’s alleged sexual harassment against him as a teen. During the civil trial regarding his lawsuit against the House of Cards actor, Rapp testified on Tuesday that he was haunted by the alleged abuse perpetrated by Spacey.
“Every time I saw him on the screen I was reminded, I could not escape that memory,” Rapp testified, per CNN, later adding, “It was as if somebody had poked me with a cattle prod.”
Rapp first sued Spacey in September 2020, nearly three years after first going public with his allegations in a 2017 BuzzFeed story and one year after a change in New York state law allowed him to file the suit. Tuesday marked Rapp’s second day of testimony.
According to Rapp, Spacey befriended him when they both worked on Broadway and sexually assaulted him during a social gathering at Spacey’s Manhattan apartment in 1986 when Rapp was 14 years old. (Spacey has said he doesn’t recall the incident.)
During the testimony, Rapp said he shared the incident with his therapist and said it “had never occurred to me” that the alleged sexual misconduct was something he could treat in therapy.
Spacey’s attorneys are expected to cross-examine Rapp next, though NBC News reported that Spacey’s attorney got Rapp to concede on the witness stand that one of his claims on why he decided to come forward was not true.
Rapp’s lawyers previously claimed that Rapp was inspired to come forward with his allegation of sexual abuse after seeing Lupita Nyong’o speak out about Harvey Weinstein. A screenshot of a text from Spacey’s lawyers showed that Rapp contacted a BuzzFeed News reporter eight days prior to Nyongo’s allegation.
Back in July, Spacey pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges — unrelated to Rapp’s case — in London. The actor had been accused of assaulting three men between 2005 and 2013 in London. The actor is expected to face trial on the London charges in June 2023.
