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      Kevin Spacey, in U.K. Trial, Denies Abusing Position of Power

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      Facing accusations of sexual assault, the actor defended himself against multiple claims. He also admitted he got “the signals wrong” during one encounter.Kevin Spacey told a British jury on Friday that some of the sexual assault accusations against him were “pure fantasy” and “absolute bollocks.”On trial in a London courtroom, Mr. Spacey fired back at several questions that Christine Agnew, the prosecutor, put to him.At one point, Mr. Spacey said, “You’re just making stuff up now,” and at another, he called the prosecution’s case “weak.” On several occasions, Justice Mark Wall, the presiding judge, interrupted to ask Mr. Spacey to answer the prosecutor directly.Mr. Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges relating to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred from 2001 to 2013. For most of that time, the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning actor was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.Sitting at the front of the courtroom, Mr. Spacey — wearing a blue suit and patterned tie — was cross-examined for nearly three hours, the day after giving his own account.At one point, Ms. Agnew asked Mr. Spacey if he agreed that he was “the golden boy of the London theater scene” at the time of the alleged encounters, and whether his accusers would have been unlikely to report him because of his reputation.Mr. Spacey said that he used his position “to help others, to create art” and to revive the reputation of the Old Vic theater. “I didn’t have a power wand that I waved in front of people’s faces whenever I wanted someone to go to bed with me,” Mr. Spacey added.Opening the case last month, Ms. Agnew, the prosecutor, said that Mr. Spacey was “a sexual bully” whose “preferred method” of assault was to “aggressively grab other men in the crotch.”In the days after Ms. Agnew’s opening remarks, the jury heard from the four anonymous complainants who detailed their encounters with the actor. Some complainants said that Mr. Spacey grabbed them. Under British law, it is illegal for anyone to identify complainants in sexual assault cases, or to publish information that may cause them to be identified.On Friday, Mr. Spacey said that he did not have a “trademark” move or grope people. “I know myself,” the actor said.Ms. Agnew asked Mr. Spacey about an encounter with one complainant, who told the British police that, during a party, Mr. Spacey hugged him, kissed him twice on the neck, said, “Be cool,” and then grabbed his crotch. Mr. Spacey pointed out that touching the man’s crotch was not his first action.“I am accepting that I got the signals wrong,” Mr. Spacey added of that encounter.During the morning session, Mr. Spacey was also asked about his encounters with the other complainants. He said that he did not clearly remember all of the events but that he had a “naughty relationship” with one complainant, and consensual oral sex with another.Mr. Spacey became most animated when asked about accusations that he assaulted a man on the day of a charity gala. The actor said he did not accept “a single word” of that complainant’s testimony. Mr. Spacey said that complainant may be motivated by “money, money and then money” to speak out against him.After Mr. Spacey’s cross-examination, the court broke for lunch. The defense is now expected to spend several days calling witnesses in support of Mr. Spacey’s case. More

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      in Theater

      ‘A Noiva e o Boa Noite Cinderela’ Review: A Performer Drugs Herself

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      In an ethically murky show at the Avignon Festival, the Brazilian performer Carolina Bianchi opens up about how she was drugged and abused, then knocks herself out with a spiked cocktail.A decade ago, the Brazilian performer and director Carolina Bianchi was drugged and assaulted. In “The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella” (“A Noiva e o Boa Noite Cinderela”), her new stage production at the Avignon Festival in France, she doesn’t merely open up about that experience. She relives part of it, night after night.Bianchi slips a similar drug into a colorful cocktail and drinks it, with a sinister “Cheers.” She talks to the audience about art and trauma, waiting for the effects to kick in, then spends the rest of the show unconscious.This all-too-real performance single-handedly jolted Avignon alive over the first week of the festival, turning Bianchi — an unknown, Amsterdam-based artist — into a sensation at the event. On the night I attended, one woman broke down in sobs on the way out. I felt nauseated at several points, as if “The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella” had tapped into my own fight-or-flight instinct.The show starts innocuously enough. Bianchi enters in a stylish white ensemble, and proceeds to deliver a lecture from a heavy stack of notes. From a desk, she examines sexual violence against women through the lens of art history, weaving in contemporary cases — chief among them the 2008 rape and murder of Pippa Bacca, a performance artist, as she hitchhiked in Turkey in a wedding dress as part of an artistic project.“The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella” may be a much safer form of performance art, but it doesn’t feel that way. Twenty minutes in, Bianchi starts drinking her cocktail. Before long, she is slurring her words and hunches over, then lies down on the table and loses consciousness.For a few minutes, time stands still. We know nothing unplanned is likely to happen: According to the French news agency Agence France-Presse, Bianchi takes a mix of tranquilizers, rather than an actual date rape drug (known in Portuguese as a “Goodnight Cinderella”), and medics are on hand. Yet her vulnerability is scarily palpable.After Bianchi is unconscious, the performance takes on a club-like atmosphere, with slinky choreography leading to sexual encounters that never look fully consensual.Christophe Raynaud de LageThen, for the next hour and a half, eight young members from Bianchi’s collective, Cara de Cavalo, take over. The backdrop rises to reveal another set, dotted with what appear to be bodies in various states of decomposition. The performers lie Bianchi down on a mattress next to them, and the atmosphere turns trippy, with loud distorted club music. Slinky choreography leads to sexual encounters that never look fully consensual.Throughout, on screens above them, Bianchi’s words continue to roll. Her narrative isn’t one of healing: She repeatedly compares her need to revisit the assault to Dante’s journey into hell. “How dare they say that surviving is revenge?” the text reads at one point. “No act of catharsis overcomes the damage.”The cast exercise real care toward the unconscious Bianchi. The group’s women are tasked with most of the physical manipulation, and their actions never mimic her assault. Yet one scene near the end would probably be too much to present in many countries. (In Avignon, viewers under 18 were “strongly discouraged” from attending.) Cast members spread Bianchi’s legs and insert a speculum and a small camera into her vagina, with a live video feed and in full view of the audience, as if to simulate a post-rape forensic examination.Is this ethical? Your mileage may vary: As a director, Bianchi is in charge, even as she relinquishes physical control. Yet it is deeply unnerving to experience this scene, knowing that the main protagonist will have little to no memory of it, even as it lives on in the heads of hundreds of audience members. Her inability to remember her own assault, Bianchi explains earlier, haunts her to this day.I hesitate to say “The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella” should tour widely, because that means Bianchi, who wakes up looking dazed in the final few minutes, will keep putting herself through this ordeal. Still, the production, billed as the first chapter of a trilogy, is already scheduled to visit Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. And love it or hate it, it doesn’t flinch from an uncomfortable truth: Sometimes there is no safe space to be found from trauma. More

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      Kevin Spacey Denies Sexual Assault Charges During U.K. Trial

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      Two weeks into a trial in London, the Oscar-winning actor gave his account of sexual encounters that the prosecution says were criminal acts.Kevin Spacey arriving at Southwark Crown Court in London on Thursday.Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKevin Spacey told a British jury on Thursday that he was “a big flirt” who had what he characterized as gentle, touching and romantic encounters with a man who accused him of sexual assault. He always respected the man’s boundaries, Mr. Spacey said, adding that he felt “crushed” when the man accused him of assault.Two weeks into a sexual assault trial in London against the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning actor, Mr. Spacey’s testimony on Thursday was the first time that the jury heard from him directly.Mr. Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges relating to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred from 2001 to 2013. For most of that time, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.Sitting at the front of a courtroom at Southwark Crown Court and facing the jury, Mr. Spacey — who was wearing a gray suit, and light blue tie — was calm and occasionally joked with his legal representative, Patrick Gibbs.Opening the trial last month, Christine Agnew, a British prosecutor, told the jury that Mr. Spacey was “a sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable.” He had repeatedly groped men, Ms. Agnew said. On one occasion, Ms. Agnew added, Mr. Spacey gave a man oral sex without that man’s consent.In the days after Ms. Agnew’s opening, the jury heard from the four anonymous complainants. Under British law, it is illegal for anyone to identify complainants in sexual assault cases, or to publish information that may cause them to be identified. The jury first watched recordings of interviews that each complainant gave to British police officers, then the accuser was cross-examined in the courthouse.The first complainant said in his police interview that, in the early 2000s, Mr. Spacey touched him multiple times. On one occasion, the complainant said, he was driving with Mr. Spacey to a ball organized by Elton John, and the actor grabbed his genitals so hard that he almost veered off the road.On Thursday, the day’s opening session focused on Mr. Spacey’s recollection of those encounters and the actor discussed his relationship with that complainant. Leaning back in his chair, and sounding wistful, he said the man was “friendly and charming and flirtatious.”The pair’s encounters gradually “became somewhat sexual,” Mr. Spacey said, adding that this most likely occurred at the actor’s own initiation. Mr. Spacey said the pair never had sex. The complainant “made it clear he didn’t want to go any further,” Mr. Spacey added. He said he had respected the complainant’s boundaries.Mr. Gibbs then asked Mr. Spacey to recall how he felt when he learned that the complainant accused him of assault. Mr. Spacey said he had been “crushed” and it felt like the complainant had stabbed him in the back. The court then adjourned for a break. More

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      in Theater

      Kevin Spacey Called ‘Sexual Bully’ in U.K. Trial

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      The prosecution outlined its case against the actor, who has pleaded not guilty to 12 sexual assault charges.The actor Kevin Spacey arriving at the London courthouse with members of his legal team.Kin Cheung/Associated PressThe actor Kevin Spacey is “a sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable,” a prosecutor told a British jury on Friday. Speaking at Southwark Crown Court, the prosecutor, Christine Agnew, outlined her case against the Academy Award-winning actor, who is on trial in London facing multiple charges of sexual assault.Ms. Agnew said that the actor’s “preferred method” of assault was to “aggressively grab other men in the crotch.” On one occasion, she said, Mr. Spacey had gone further and performed oral sex on a man while he was asleep.The actor “abused the power and influence that his reputation and fame afforded him” to take “who he wanted, when he wanted,” Ms. Agnew said.Mr. Spacey has pleaded not guilty to all charges.The actor, 63, faces 12 charges related to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred between 2001 and 2013. For much of that period, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.Ms. Agnew said that the complainants included an aspiring actor and a man whom Mr. Spacey had met at a work event. Under British law, it is illegal for anyone to identify complainants in sexual assault cases or to publish information that may cause them to be identified.Patrick Gibbs, Mr. Spacey’s legal representative, gave a short statement stressing his client’s innocence. He said the jury would hear some half truths, some “deliberate exaggerations” and “many damned lies.”He asked the jury to consider the complainants’ motivations, and to think about whether the encounters could have been “reasonably believed to be consensual at the time.”During Ms. Agnew’s statement, she discussed interviews that Mr. Spacey had given to the British police under caution. During one of those, she said, Mr. Spacey said that it was “entirely possible and indeed likely” that he had made “a clumsy pass” at other men but that he would never have touched someone’s crotch “without an indication of consent.”Throughout Ms. Agnew’s almost 60-minute opening statement, Mr. Spacey sat in a large transparent box in the middle of the courtroom, wearing a light gray suit, white shirt and gold tie, watching intently. On several occasions, he looked at photographs in an evidence bundle. When Mr. Gibbs spoke, Mr. Spacey nodded along and looked at the jury.Friday morning’s session ended shortly after Mr. Gibbs’s comments. The prosecution its scheduled to call its first witnesses on Monday. More

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      in Theater

      Kevin Spacey Begins Sexual Assault Trial

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      The actor faces 12 charges related to incidents that prosecutors say involved four men and occurred between 2001 and 2013.Kevin Spacey, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, appeared briefly on Wednesday in a London courtroom for the first day of a trial on multiple charges of sexual assault.Mr. Spacey, 63, is facing 12 charges related to incidents that the prosecution says involved four men and occurred between 2001 and 2013. For much of that period, he was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London.In two previous hearings over the past year, Mr. Spacey pleaded not guilty to all those charges.On Wednesday morning, in a wood-paneled courtroom at Southwark Crown Court — a venue typically used for high-profile British criminal cases — Mr. Spacey sat in a large transparent box in the middle of the room, wearing a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and pink tie, while the jury was sworn in.The judge overseeing the case, Mark Wall, told the jurors that Mr. Spacey would “be gratified that many of you know his name, or have seen his films,” but said that would not disqualify them from serving on the case. Mr. Spacey, who is appearing under his full name, Kevin Spacey Fowler, smiled at the comment.Just after midday, the judge dismissed the jury until Friday morning, when the prosecution is expected to deliver its opening statement. Mr. Spacey then left the courtroom with several advisers.Mr. Spacey is facing 12 charges including multiple counts of sexual assault and one charge of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without their consent. More

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      in Music

      German Police Investigate Rammstein Singer Over Sexual Assault Accusations

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      Accusations against the band’s frontman had been swirling on social media and in reports by German news outlets for nearly two weeks.Berlin’s state prosecutor said Wednesday that it had launched an investigation into accusations that Till Lindemann, the frontman of the German rock band Rammstein, had drugged and sexually assaulted women.Accusations against Mr. Lindemann — including that he oversaw a system to recruit female fans for sex before, during and after Rammstein shows — had been swirling on social media and in reports by German news outlets, citing anonymous sources, for nearly two weeks. But there had been no legal response until Wednesday.Mr. Lindemann’s lawyers did not reply to a request for comment on Thursday, but last week, they issued a statement denying that Mr. Lindemann had drugged women and warning that they would take legal action against individuals making such claims and news outlets reporting them.After news of the investigation broke, the band’s record company, Universal Music, announced that it would suspend promotional and marketing activities for the band. “The accusations against Till Lindemann have shocked us,” a record label spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday.Rammstein, a metal band that is arguably Germany’s most famous musical act, is currently in the midst of a 35-date European stadium tour. After one of the tour’s first concerts, in Vilnius, Lithuania, in May, Shelby Lynn, a 24-year old woman from Northern Ireland who was at the gig, posted an extended Twitter thread in which she said she had been invited into “row zero,” a special zone in front of the stage, inaccessible to regular concertgoers.In her telling, she and other women were led from there to a preshow party where they were offered alcohol. Later, after the show began, Ms. Lynn said she was singled out and taken to a small room below the stage, where she was told to wait for Mr. Lindemann. The singer appeared during an instrumental number expecting sex, she said, adding that when she declined, he behaved angrily.Protesters outside a Rammstein concert in Munich this month.Sven Hoppe/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesMs. Lynn said she believes that she had been drugged, possibly when Mr. Lindemann served tequila shots to women attending the preshow party. After drinking one of those, Ms. Lynn wrote on Twitter, she felt like “a human zombie, singing, dancing, but also stumbling.” She said she was violently ill the next day and discovered bruises on her body.Ms. Lynn filed a police report in Vilnius, but the Lithuanian authorities said they would not investigate because they saw no evidence of a crime.The Twitter thread by Ms. Lynn was quickly picked up, and as many as 50 other women got in touch over social media to share similar stories, she said in a direct message exchange with The New York Times over Instagram. She posted some of the messages on her own feed, with the women’s names deleted.Many major German news outlets investigated and published evidence of a system to recruit young women to backstage parties. Women who spoke anonymously to the newspaper Die Welt said that, after attending the gatherings, they experienced symptoms that could indicate they had been drugged. But no one, besides Ms. Lynn, agreed to put their name to the charges.Then a German social media influencer, Kaya Loska, 21, who posts as Kayla Shyx, posted her own story on YouTube, where she has nearly 800,000 subscribers. In the 37-minute video, she says she was recruited to attend a backstage party at a Rammstein concert in Berlin, in June 2022. She had to give her cellphone to security, she says, and was led into a room where young women were offered alcohol and sandwiches, and told to wait.“We were simply brought in there so that Rammstein could choose some for himself,” Ms. Loska texted a friend hours after the concert, according to screenshots she shared in her video. She left the party after having that realization, she says in the video.It was well-known on Rammstein fan sites and in Reddit threads devoted to the band that women who wanted to attend the band’s backstage parties could get in touch via Instagram with Alena Makeeva, a Russian woman who called herself Rammstein’s “casting director.” Ms. Lynn and Ms. Loska both said that Ms. Makeeva had invited them to attend the parties.Ms. Lynn, whose social media posts ultimately led the Berlin investigation, said she was encouraged by how many women had spoken out already. “Already there has been so many girls,” Ms. Lynn said in an Instagram direct message, adding that she believed the state prosecutor’s investigation would encourage more to come forward.“I can’t imagine how many more there will be,” she said. “I can only hope the girls too afraid know that they can have faith in me, and have faith we will get justice.” More

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      in Television

      Bill Cosby Accused of Sexual Assault in Nevada by Nine Women

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      The entertainer, who was released from prison in 2021 after a conviction was overturned, now faces lawsuits in states where the statutes of limitations have changed.Nine women accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault in a Nevada lawsuit on Wednesday, less than two months after the state changed its statute of limitations for civil cases involving that crime.The women said in the lawsuit that the assaults took place in Nevada between 1979 and 1992, some in Mr. Cosby’s hotel suite in Las Vegas. They said that Mr. Cosby, now 85, had drugged or attempted to drug each of them before the assaults.A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday night. He told NBC News that the plaintiffs in the case were motivated by “addiction to massive amounts of media attention and greed.”The lawsuit is the latest of several to accuse the entertainer of being a sexual predator. He was convicted of sexual assault in a Pennsylvania court in 2018 and began serving a three- to 10-year sentence.Mr. Cosby was released in 2021 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction on the grounds that prosecutors had violated his rights by reneging on a promise not to charge him. Mr. Wyatt described the court’s reversal at the time as a victory for both Black America and women.But accusations of sexual misconduct have continued to trail Mr. Cosby, who starred for years in “The Cosby Show,” a mainstay of American television in the 1980s and early 1990s. And he now faces several new lawsuits in states where the laws governing statutes of limitations have recently changed.In California last year, a jury sided with Judy Huth, who had accused Mr. Cosby of sexually assaulting her in 1975 at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, when she was 16. She was awarded $500,000.Mr. Cosby was also sued in Los Angeles this month by Victoria Valentino, a former Playboy model who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her in that city in 1969, after she and a friend met him for a meal in a restaurant.The California cases were possible because state law has been changed since 2020 to extend, then temporarily lift, the statute of limitations for sexual assault filings in civil courts.A similar process in New Jersey allowed Lili Bernard, an actor and visual artist, to sue Mr. Cosby in 2021, accusing him of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Atlantic City in 1990.In Nevada, the state legislature passed a law in May that revised provisions around some civil cases involving sexual assault. The law allows people who were 18 or older when a sexual assault allegedly occurred to file civil lawsuits. Older state laws had already allowed people who were under 18 at the time of an alleged sexual assault to bring such cases.Some of the nine women who filed the lawsuit on Wednesday have been involved in legal action against Mr. Cosby in other states.One is Ms. Bernard, a former guest star on “The Cosby Show.” Another is Janice Dickinson, a model who appeared as a witness during Mr. Cosby’s Pennsylvania trial, testifying that he had drugged and sexually assaulted her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 1982. “Every state should follow Nevada’s lead and eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual assault,” said Lisa Bloom, a lawyer who represented Ms. Dickinson in the Pennsylvania case. “I applaud the courage of these women for demanding justice against Bill Cosby.” More

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      Actor Danny Masterson Found Guilty of Raping 2 Women in Retrial

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      The case against a star of the sitcom “That ’70s Show” drew widespread attention because of accusations that the Church of Scientology had tried to discourage his accusers.A jury in Los Angeles on Wednesday convicted Danny Masterson, the actor best known for his role on the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” of having raped two women in a case that drew widespread attention because of accusations that the Church of Scientology had tried to discourage his accusers.The jury deadlocked on a charge that Masterson had raped a third woman, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.The mixed verdict came after a jury deadlocked on all three charges in November, resulting in a mistrial. The retrial lasted more than a month, and jurors deliberated for more than a week before finding him guilty of two counts of rape by force or fear.Masterson, 47, was taken into custody after the verdict. He will face up to 30 years to life in state prison when he is sentenced on Aug. 4, the district attorney’s office said.Prosecutors said that Masterson, who played Steven Hyde on “That ’70s Show” from 1998 to 2006, raped three women at his home in the Hollywood Hills between 2001 and 2003. He was charged in 2020 and had pleaded not guilty. A spokeswoman for Masterson’s legal team said the lawyers had no immediate comment after the verdict on Wednesday.The case was closely watched in part because of accusations by two of the women that the Church of Scientology, to which they and Masterson belonged, had discouraged them from reporting the rapes to law enforcement, according to court documents. The church has strongly denied that it pressures victims.Although both trials centered on the same allegations, Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo of Los Angeles Superior Court allowed prosecutors to tell jurors directly in the second trial that Masterson had drugged his three accusers, The Associated Press reported.Prosecutors suggested the possibility of drugging only in the first trial, as they presented testimony that the women felt disoriented and confused after Masterson gave them alcoholic drinks.Masterson’s lawyer, Philip Cohen, had argued that the women’s stories were inconsistent and that there was no physical evidence of drugging and “no evidence of force or violence,” The A.P. reported.“I am experiencing a complex array of emotions — relief, exhaustion, strength, sadness — knowing that my abuser, Danny Masterson, will face accountability for his criminal behavior,” one of Masterson’s accusers, who was identified in court documents only as N. Trout, said in a statement released by a public relations firm for lawyers who are representing her in a lawsuit against Masterson and the Church of Scientology.Another accuser, who was identified in court documents only as Christina B., said in the same statement that she was “devastated” that the jury had deadlocked on the charge that Masterson raped her in 2001 when they were in a relationship.“Despite my disappointment in this outcome, I remain determined to secure justice, including in civil court, where I, along with my co-plaintiffs, will shine a light on how Scientology and other conspirators enabled and sought to cover up Masterson’s monstrous behavior,” she said.According to a trial brief filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in September, Christina B. had reported the rape to the church’s “ethics officer” or “master at arms,” who told her, “You can’t rape someone that you’re in a relationship with” and “Don’t say that word again.”According to the brief, Masterson raped a third woman, identified only as Jen B., in April 2003 after he gave her a red vodka drink. About 20 or 30 minutes later, she felt “very disoriented,” the brief states.According to the brief, Masterson raped her after she regained consciousness on his bed. She reached for his hair to try to pull him off and tried to push a pillow into his face, the brief states. When Masterson heard a man yelling in the house, he pulled a gun from his night stand and told her not to move or to “say anything,” adding expletives, the brief states.Jen B., after seeking the church’s permission to report the rape, received a written response from the church’s international chief justice that cited a 1965 policy letter regarding “suppressive acts,” the brief states.To her, the response signaled that if she were to report a fellow Scientologist to the police, “I would be declared a suppressive person, and I would be out of my family and friends and everything I have,” the brief states. Still, she reported the rape to law enforcement in June 2004, the document states.N. Trout told her mother and best friend about the rape, but not the church, the brief states.“If you have a legal situation with another member of the church, you may not handle it externally from the church, and it’s very explicit,” she said, according to the brief. She added that she “felt sufficiently intimidated by the repercussions.”The church said in a statement in April that it “has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of anyone, Scientologists or not, to law enforcement.”“Quite the opposite,” the statement said. “Church policy explicitly demands Scientologists abide by all laws of the land.” More