Kevin Spacey rises above Hollywood blacklisting to receive honour with major film award
Topics: Celebrity, Entertainment, News, Film and TV
Rachel Lang
Featured Image Credit: Erik Pendzich / Alamy. The Photo Access / Alamy.
Topics: Celebrity, Entertainment, News, Film and TV
Kevin Spacey has resurfaced to receive a lifetime motion picture award, despite being shunned by Hollywood in the wake of sexual abuse allegations during the Me Too era.
In 2017, Spacey was accused of sexually assaulting then-14-year-old actor Anthony Rapp at a party in 1986.
Rapp claimed the Hollywood star was intoxicated and made sexual advances towards him.
Spacey was aged 26 at the time.
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Spacey also faced allegations in the US, with claims he groped a man at a bar, however prosecutors later dropped the charges.
Despite being blacklisted and shunned in Hollywood circles, it seems that there was always Europe as an option.
Because that is exactly where the embattled star has popped up.
Spacey has surfaced in Italy to receive a major film award from the National Museum of Cinema in Turin.
He will be receive a lifetime achievement award from the cinematic institution, the prestigious Stella della Mole Award for lifetime achievement.
Past recipients of the award include Isabella Rossellini and Monica Bellucci.
The Turin museum said via a statement that it would be honouring Spacey 'as a recognition of his aesthetic and authorial contribution to the development of dramatic art throughout his filmography'.
He will also teach a masterclass in acting and will introduce a screening of his 1999 film American Beauty, a film about a suburban dad who becomes obsessed with an underage student.
And, despite seeming to vanish from the face of the Earth after a string of sex abuse accusations, the House of Cards has insisted he never 'hid' from anyone.
Speaking to the press in Italy he said, via AP: :I live my life every day, I go to restaurants, I meet people, drive, play tennis, I’ve always managed to meet generous, genuine, compassionate people."
"I haven’t hidden away, I haven’t gone to live in a cave."
He added: “What you see in the media is not real life, I’m not coming back to public life because I never left it."
The institution's decision to honour him has been met with fury, with Spacey still set to answer to several courts for his alleged crimes against men and boys,
In July last year, Spacey denied five allegations relating to three different men, who are all now in their 30s and 40s.
The 63-year-old is now facing a total of 12 sexual offences against four men, with a trial set to begin in June.