Sharon Stone appears to be once again showing her support for disgraced actor Kevin Spacey.
The 66-year-old actress, who was sued in May for allegedly causing a car crash, stood up for the 64-year-old LA Confidential star, attributing his cancellation and lost work opportunities to homophobia in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Stone believed that Spacey faced more severe consequences than other men accused of sexual misconduct because he was accused of sexual abuse by another person.
Following a series of sexual misconduct allegations in 2017, all of which Spacey has denied, he was fired from the final season of Netflix’s House Of Cards and his planned Gore Vidal biopic for the streamer was canceled. His already-filmed role in Ridley Scott’s All The Money In The World was also reprised, with Christopher Plummer reprising his role.
The Casino actress previously appeared in May to defend Spacey in a statement to The TelegraphLiam Neeson, F. Murray Abraham and Stephen Fry also issued statements in support of Spacey, following the release of the Channel 4 docuseries Spacey Unmasked, in which ten men accused Spacey of sexual misconduct.
Sharon Stone appears to be showing her support for Kevin Spacey once again. The 66-year-old actress stood up for the 64-year-old LA Confidential star, blaming homophobia for his cancellation and lost job opportunities in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter
Stone and Spacey are pictured looking cozy at a pre-Oscars dinner in Los Angeles in 2011
Stone called Spacey a “genius” at the time and indicated that he would like to work on Hollywood productions again.
She also appeared to blame the men who made the allegations against Spacey, accusing them of having “secret agendas” and “using” the discredited actor.
In her new interview, Stone admitted that “people are mad at me” for pointing fingers at Spacey’s accusers.
Stone suffered a massive stroke in 2001. She said her seven-year experience of being largely out of the film industry helped her empathize with Spacey’s plight.
“I said that after seven years of therapy, not being allowed to work, losing his home, losing everything, he should be allowed to come back. He’s contacted everyone he’s offended and said he’s sorry,” she explained.
Shockingly, the Oscar nominee did not appear to deny the allegations against Spacey.
“Kevin was grabbing people by their genitals,” she continued. “A lot of people.”
But she said those alleged crimes received an inordinate amount of publicity despite the fact that no one publicly accused him of “raping or forcing sexual acts.”
Stone believed the level of “hatred” towards the Usual Suspects actor stemmed from the fact that he was accused of “man-on-man” crimes.
Stone did not deny the allegations against Spacey, but said he was treated worse because they involved allegations of sexual misconduct between men; seen in LA in March
She said the sentence was too harsh because no one accused him of rape, and she said men who had assaulted her in the past faced far fewer consequences; still from Basic Instinct
She said Spacey was thrown out of Hollywood because “he insulted men,” but later told Entertainment Weekly she was not defending Spacey; he is pictured with Piers Morgan in a recent interview
“That’s why he can’t come back. Because he insulted men,” she claimed.
She even claimed that Spacey’s behavior was much better than other powerful men who had sexually abused her.
Can I tell you how many men have grabbed my genitals? [without consent] in my life? More times than Kevin Spacey has grabbed men’s genitals,” she claimed. “And not one of them has ever apologized to me.”
When asked if she would be more likely to forgive Spacey now that she was in conflict with the public, Stone said she had been “cancelled from all sides.”
“But now I’m back in fashion. All those things I said and did in the ’90s that were so scandalous are now in fashion,” she said, calling herself a “dark horse.”
But in a later statement to Entertainment weeklyThe Basic Instinct star said she “didn’t defend” [Spacey] and I don’t defend him.’
Instead, she characterized the crimes he was accused of as “compulsive behavior.”
“When someone goes through seven years of recovery from compulsive behavior, whether it’s drug addiction, alcohol addiction, sex addiction, and then takes responsibility for it, we let them come back into our industry and work with their sponsor,” Stone said. “This is the only case I’ve seen where that wasn’t the case.
“I think it’s because it’s a sex crime between two men,” she explained.
Stone concluded by calling on the public to find a “middle line” in the way it responds to sex crimes, because “we are not responsible at all for sex crimes between men and women…”
Instead, she characterized the crimes he was accused of as “compulsive behavior” and contrasted his treatment with the way people who get help for compulsive behavior are treated; seen together in 1996
Following allegations of sexual misconduct in 2017, Spacey was fired from Netflix’s House Of Cards and his planned Gore Vidal biopic for the streamer was canceled. His already-filmed role in All The Money In The World was reshot with Christopher Plummer reprising his role
Spacey has not yet been convicted in court on any of the charges. Last year, a jury in London found him not guilty on all charges after he was accused of sexually abusing four men in the United Kingdom.
He was previously acquitted in a 2022 civil lawsuit in which Rent actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of molesting him when he was just 14 and Spacey was 26. As part of the verdict, Rapp was ordered to pay Spacey’s legal fees.
Spacey is not out of the woods yet, however, as he is currently being sued by one of the men he was acquitted of sexually assaulting. The burden of proof in a civil case is considerably lower than in a criminal case, but Spacey continues to deny the allegations.
He nearly lost the case after the man who accused him was granted a default judgment because Spacey failed to respond to the lawsuit in a timely manner. However, a judge reversed the judgment after ruling that it was Spacey’s lawyers who failed to respond in time.