Actor Anthony Rapp says he was inspired to speak out against Kevin Spacey after he read Lupita Nyong'o's moving first person account about Harvey Weinstein.
Weinstein, once a powerful Hollywood producer, fell spectacularly from grace after multiple women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie and Nyong'o came forward to allege him of sexual harassment.
Allegations against Weinstein sparked the #MeToo movement in Hollywood, inspiring others to share their stories of sexual harassment.
Rapp, who was first to speak out against Spacey, says he was initially not sure about coming forward but once he read the account by Nyong'o, he changed his mind.
"I was following along with the Harvey Weinstein stories, to some degree, but I wasn't like diving into them. And I hadn't yet really made the connection for myself. Lupita Nyong'o wrote a first person piece in The New York Times about her experience with Harvey. And as they go, she was pretty fortunate in that she was able to avoid the worst of it, but she wrote so beautifully and eloquently about what experience was like for her...
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"Coupled with it was the knowledge that that had been going on for decades to so many people, and that I knew for a fact several people in my own circle who had had experiences with Kevin Spacey, that it was like that was when the penny dropped, and I had to do something. It wasn't about my own experience, it really was not about airing out my own laundry. I thought that would be the only way that we could stop him," Rapp said told Cameron Esposito on her Queery podcast.
But Rapp was worried that his revelation may not be enough to convince people about Spacey's alleged predatory behaviour.
"I mean, I truly did not know that my story was enough. I thought - part of what was so powerful about the Harvey Weinstein thing was that there were so many stories. It was unavoidable. You couldn't escape it. So if it was just me, was that gonna be enough?
Other people soon came forward against Spacey, leading Netflix to suspend the production of "House of Cards" and eventually moving forward without him. He was also replaced in Ridley Scott's "All the Money in the World".
"Before any of this happened, none of us thought these dominoes would actually fall... None of us ever thought that anything could ever come of all of this. We all just thought that we'd have to look the other way and get along. It's such a profound paradigm shift. It just didn't seem possible that these people could be removed from power,"
Spacey denied the allegations against him in a bizarre statement on Twitter in which he also came out as gay.
Rapp says he is happy that Spacey is no longer in the position to abuse others.
"I feel satisfied that he's on blast and that he can't do that anymore. I don't know in what environment that could happen now. He won't be in a position of power in a workplace situation, where he can do things.
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