Kevin Spacey denies sexual assault allegations in UK trial

Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey told jurors that he believed an encounter with a man who has since accused him of sexual assault was “romantic and intimate” and denied any wrongdoing during his trial in London, according to multiple reports.

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He said Thursday that he had developed a “flirtatious” relationship with the man, who claimed Spacey grabbed him intimately as he was driving the actor to a party hosted by Elton John in the early 2000s, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

“It did not happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way,” Spacey said, according to BBC News. “It was gentle… and it was, in my mind, romantic.”

The actor described himself as “a big flirt” and said his physical relationship with his accuser never progressed because he “made it clear that he did not want to go any further,” the news station reported.

He added that when he learned about the allegations, he was “crushed.”

“I never thought that [the man] I knew would 20 years later stab me in the back,” he said, according to The Guardian.

Spacey has been accused of sexually assaulting four men in the United Kingdom, prosecutors said. The allegations span the 2000s and early 2010s, when Spacey was working as artistic director at London’s Old Vic theater, CNN reported.

Jurors earlier heard from Spacey’s accusers, who described him as “atrocious, despicable, disgusting” and as a “vile sexual predator,” according to BBC News.

Spacey told jurors that he might have made a “clumsy pass” at one of the alleged victims and denied allegations that he drugged another man before performing a sex act on him, BBC News and The Guardian reported. He called another accuser’s allegations “madness,” and added, “It never happened,” according to BBC News.

The actor broke down Thursday while describing the way his “world exploded” after the sexual abuse allegations against him first emerged in 2017, The Guardian reported.

“There was a rush to judgment, and before the first question was asked or answered I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days,” he said.

Spacey is facing a dozen charges, including three counts of indecent assault and seven counts of sexual assault. Last year, a civil jury found that the “House of Cards” and “American Beauty” actor did not sexually abuse Anthony Rapp when the latter actor was a teenager in 1986.

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