Kevin Spacey sat down with Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast for a conversation about his legal battles, the people who stood by him, and what he believes comes next for his career.
Reflecting on why he had remained largely silent over the past several years, Spacey said he had been advised against speaking publicly.
“There’s just been a period of years where the advice that Evan and I were getting was that I just couldn’t come out and have the kind of conversations I would like to have had,” Spacey told Maher, referring to his longtime business partner Evan Lowenstein.
Spacey also discussed who had publicly supported him throughout the controversy. He specifically praised conservative commentator Douglas Murray and contrasted that support with what he described as silence from the political left.
“People like Douglas and others on the right have been so publicly supportive of me and believe that I was not given due process and have been out there for me and supporting me,” Spacey said.
Maher responded with a sarcastic jab.
“Yeah, cuz you’re bad and they’re bad,” Maher quipped.
Spacey immediately rejected that characterization.
“Fine, if that’s what you want to think,” he replied. “But on the left, not a single journalist has stood up and said anything in my favor for 9 years.”
While Maher acknowledged the outcomes of Spacey’s legal cases, he admitted that the number of accusations still gave him pause. According to Maher, his instinct was that Spacey “should have gotten some punishment.”
Spacey did not deny that some of his past behavior had crossed personal boundaries. However, he argued there was a significant difference between inappropriate conduct and criminal behavior.
“It just wasn’t a raging forest fire,” Spacey said. “It was a small kitchen fire that could have been put out with an extinguisher.”
Pointing to his courtroom victories, Spacey argued that the legal outcomes should carry more weight in the public conversation.
“We have been found not guilty in every court we’ve gone into with a jury,” he said.
That includes the federal civil trial in New York involving actor Anthony Rapp, who accused Spacey in a 2017 BuzzFeed article of making a s3xual advance toward him when Rapp was a teenager. Spacey claimed the allegations fell apart once evidence was presented in court.
“The entire story was not true,” he said. “The foundation of the story he built around a bedroom in an apartment that he said I rented.”
He continued by explaining that the physical layout of the apartment contradicted Rapp’s account.
“As it turned out, and as we proved in a court of law, I lived in a studio apartment,” Spacey said. “There was no bedroom. There was no door. The entire foundation of what he told this story around completely crumbled with the evidence.”
Looking back on the nearly decade-long fallout, Spacey argued that he has already paid a steep professional price.
“I think when people actually start to hear the facts and understand what we’ve won in court,” he said, “I think people now look at this and think, hmm, maybe 9 years has been enough.”
To illustrate his point, Spacey compared his situation to how athletes are often treated after misconduct allegations.
“If I had been a sports figure I would have been benched for seven games,” he said.
The conversation also turned to Spacey’s s3xuality. He confirmed he had intended to publicly come out as gay roughly two years before the allegations surfaced in 2017, insisting the scandal did not force that decision.
Looking back, he said his biggest regret was not doing so earlier in life.
“Coming out is not easy,” Spacey said. “It was not easy for me. I’m sorry that I didn’t have that courage earlier in my life.”
He added that rather than feeling embraced by the LGBTQ+ community while he remained closeted, he often felt criticized.
Despite the controversies surrounding his career, Spacey said he is optimistic about the future. He revealed plans for concerts featuring the American songbook, a revival of his one-man Clarence Darrow show, a new solo production about filmmaker Preston Sturges, and an upcoming film in Italy centered on the Holocaust.
He also believes the experiences of the past several years, including lengthy legal battles, therapy, and self-reflection, have changed him as a performer.
“I’m closer to myself than I’ve ever been,” Spacey said. “And I’m really excited about what my work is going to be like now.”
