Harry Dreyfuss Says Kevin Spacey Groped Him When He Was 18
The allegations against Kevin Spacey continue to pile up with yet another account from Harry Dreyfuss.
Dreyfuss opened up in a piece for BuzzFeed yesterday about not just what Spacey did, but with how he internalized it and talked about it to others in the following years.
It happened, he writes, in 2008, when his father Richard Dreyfuss starred in a play that was being directed by Spacey.
Dreyfuss and his father met with Spacey at his apartment to do a line run-through, and this is what he says happened next:
Kevin was sitting extremely close to me, but I didn’t blink because Kevin handed me the script and told me to read with my dad (playing the part of his wife). The only thing going through my mind at the time was how amazing it was that I was getting to act in front of one of my idols.
After a few minutes, he put his hand on my thigh. Finally (finally, finally) I became suspicious. It took that long because it just never occurred to me that Kevin would be interested in me in the first place. He was an adult man, a hero of mine, my dad’s boss, none of which were categories on my radar for sexual interactions. Besides, I thought, Surely he can’t be coming on to me like this right in front of my dad. But his hand stayed there. So after a bit, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant safety tactic: I stood up and walked to the other side of the couch, and sat back down. Bulletproof. But without missing a beat, Kevin stood up too, and followed me. He sat just as close and immediately put his hand back on my thigh…
So I stood up one more time and returned to my original place on the couch, giving Kevin another opportunity to take the hint. I also added one more layer of protection. The moment I sat down, I firmly placed my own hands upon my thighs, palms down, claiming that territory for myself.
Once again Kevin followed me, sat down, and with considerable effort, slid his hand between my right hand and my right leg. He’d snuck in.
And then Spacey “crawled his hand from my thigh over toward my crotch.” This, again, was with Dreyfuss’ father in the room.
Dreyfuss says his father didn’t notice and he did not want to alert him lest it cause problems.
But years later, after doing “a lot of mental gymnastics to normalize my experience,” he now sees the importance of speaking up to “add my voice to the people who are demanding a better world.”
A lawyer representing Spacey told BuzzFeed, “Let me be clear, Mr. Spacey absolutely denies the allegations.”
In the past week since BuzzFeed’s initial report on Spacey, Netflix has completely severed ties to him, the International Academy revoked its plans to present him an award, and the Oscar campaign for an upcoming movie he’s starring in has reportedly “been shelved.”
[image via Yannik Bikker / Shutterstock.com]
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