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When the explosive news broke on October 30 that Kevin Spacey had reportedly sexually assaulted then-14-year-old actor Anthony Rapp 30 years ago, the headline was underlined by a second subplot: Former Boston news anchor Heather Unruh posted to Twitter stating she would be disclosing another set of allegations involving Spacey and a “loved one” in time. Overnight, she has done exactly that.
Unruh, accompanied by her lawyer, held a press conference where she detailed the night one year ago when the House Of Cards actor allegedly inappropriately groped and propositioned her underage son. “The victim, my son, was a star-struck, straight, 18-year-old man who had no idea that the famous actor was an alleged sexual predator or that he was about to become his next victim,” she said holding back tears.
Unruh alleges in July of 2016, her son visited a club in Massachusetts and although he was legally not old enough to drink, Spacey bought him drink after drink. She then says once her son was sufficiently drunk, the actor stuck his hand inside her son’s pants and groped him. Unruh says her son panicked and froze as Spacey insisted his younger drinking companion join him at a private after-party. But it was when Spacey went to the bathroom that Unruh says a woman approached her son. She was “concerned” and “told him to run.”
“He ran as fast as he could all the way to his grandmother’s house where, upset and afraid, he woke his sister, Kyla, and the two of them called me in the middle of the night,” she says.
Unruh says the event has caused her family great anxiety and her son, who was initially too afraid to come forward for fear of unwanted media attention, is now confident that the time to act is now.
Spacey responded to Rapp’s allegations citing he did not remember the encounter and was sorry. He also distastefully used the opportunity to confirm his sexuality as gay. “I’m beyond horrified to hear his story,” Spacey wrote in a statement. “If I did behave as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years. This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life… I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.”
Overnight, actor Roberto Cavazos came forward and alleged he too had experienced unpleasant encounters with Spacey, ones which amount to being considered “on the edge of sexual assault”. “In fact, if I was a woman, I probably wouldn’t have doubted in identifying them as such, but I guess the lack of a direct or aggressive action led me to justify the incident as ‘one of those things.’ There are many of us who have a ‘Kevin Spacey story,’ ” Cavazos continued. “It seems like you only needed to be a man under 30 for him to feel free to touch us. It was so common that it turned into a (very bad) joke amongst us.”
More to come.
