Actor Kevin Spacey charged with sexual assault

Kevin Spacey

Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenager at a bar in Massachusetts. He will appear in court on January 7 over the incident, which allegedly occurred in Nantucket in July 2016.

On Monday, Spacey posted a video in which he appeared to deny any wrongdoing while in character as Frank Underwood from "House of Cards", the BBC reported. "I'm certainly not going to pay the price for the things I didn't do," he said in the clip. "You wouldn't believe the worst without evidence, would you?" he said. "You wouldn't rush to judgements without facts."

The three-minute clip, which is titled "Let Me Be Frank", marks Spacey's first public appearance since the first allegation of sexual assault was made against him last November.

The alleged victim is the son of former television news presenter Heather Unruh, who spoke publicly about the incident in 2017. She accused Spacey of buying her then 18-year-old son alcohol -- the drinking age in Massachusetts is 21 -- and then groping him. In Monday's video, Spacey speaks in Frank Underwood's accent and addresses the viewer directly, much like he did throughout his five seasons on House of Cards. "Of course some believed everything," he said. "They're just waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all," the BBC quoted him as saying.

"They're going to say I'm being disrespectful, not playing by the rules," he added. "Like I ever played by anyone's rules before. I never did. And you loved it." Frank Underwood was the power-hungry and conniving protagonist of the Netflix series, and murdered a journalist and a politician before he was killed off ahead of season six.

Spacey has also been accused by actor Anthony Rapp of making a sexual advance in 1986 and a number of other allegations have since emerged. Spacey said he had no memory of the event but publicly apologised before issuing an "absolute" denial of the other allegations. Separately, in September, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said Spacey would not be prosecuted over an accusation of sexual assault that allegedly took place in 1992.

It said it fell outside of California's statute of limitations. The UK police have also been probing several allegations that centre around his time serving as artistic director at London's Old Vic theatre.

The #MeToo controversy has led to Spacey being axed from a number of roles, including from "House of Cards" and the 2017 film "All the Money in the World", which was re-shot without him. A film in which he appears, "Billionaire Boys Club", also took a record-breaking low of $126 on its first night in US cinemas in August.

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