Kevin Spacey
Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Kevin Spacey is essentially broke and is having his Baltimore home foreclosed upon, the beleaguered actor admitted while sitting for a lengthy interview this week with Piers Morgan on the perennial TV host’s Fox News show.
The interview with a sympathetic Morgan on his YouTube show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, takes a wide-ranging look at Spacey’s life. Included — sometimes through the actor’s tears — are details of his tumultuous childhood family life with a Nazi-sympathizer father; a discussion of his ongoing shunning from Hollywood, despite the accused actor notching multiple not-guilty verdicts as allegations of his past sexual misconduct have fallen to pieces in U.K. and U.S. courts; and flat denials from Spacey of some of the fresh accusations lobbed at him in a new Channel 4 documentary.
The sit-down culminated with Spacey disclosing that he’s essentially in financial ruin, with his Baltimore home about to be foreclosed on seven years after he was accused of misconduct and abuse by multiple men in 2017. As more accusations poured in, Spacey nearly instantly lost his deal with Netflix and the lead role on its then-major series, House of Cards. All acting work offers for the two-time Oscar winner dried up as most of his friends and associates disappeared, along with his reputation as a prestige actor in Hollywood.
“This week, where I have been living in Baltimore is being foreclosed on. My house has been sold off, so I have to go back to Baltimore and put all my things in storage,” Spacey admitted, tearing up after Morgan asked where he’s now living. “So the answer to the question is, “I’m not quite sure where I’m going to live now.’”
When asked to clarify exactly why the foreclosure is happening, Spacey told Morgan, “Because I can’t pay the bills that I owe,” but said that he has been able to dodge filing for bankruptcy, “as of today.” However, when Morgan asked how much money Spacey has, he told him, “None.”
“Well, you have some sense of legal bills. I still have a lot of legal bills,’ he told Morgan, who pressed him about what he now owes to his attorneys. Spacey replied, “Many millions.”
Earlier in the interview, Spacey discussed how one of those who abandoned him in the immediate aftermath of the accusations going public was his House of Cards co-star, Robin Wright. Following his firing from the series by Netflix, Wright went from a co-starring role as first lady Claire Underwood to his President Frank Underwood, to take on the show’s lead role after Spacey’s character was killed off. Spacey, despite being entirely shut out by Wright as the scandal surrounding him went public, had nothing bad to say about his longtime colleague, whom he said he loved to make laugh on set every day.
“I think that by distancing herself from me, it allowed her to not have to answer a lot of questions. And I understand that,” he said of Wright, whom he had worked with decades ago on the 1998 film adaptation of the play Hurlyburly. “I’m trying very hard to not be judgmental and to try, even when people do things that I don’t understand, to try to seek understanding rather than judgment.”
Morgan and Spacey also delved into the actor’s tumultuous childhood early in their conversation. Spacey went into detail about the soul-searching he has done over the past several years regarding his mother and her complacency in the abuse he suffered in his youth by his father.
In a New York courtroom in 2022, as he faced accusations from actor Anthony Rapp of sexual misconduct in 1986 when the latter was 14 years old, told the court his father was “a white supremacist and a neo-Nazis” and that he “grew up in a very complicated family dynamic” that brought feelings of shame about his sexuality (Rapp had called Spacey a fraud for not being an out gay man).
Spacey told Morgan that he has begun to understand his mother, who he said had told him that his father’s racism, homophobia and violence were things that he merely needed to “get off of his chest,” and his father — who he revealed in the interview had a Nazi flag hung in his bedroom.
“I came to see the journey that [his father] took from being a medic in World War II. And going through his albums, going through his diaries, and seeing what he wrote about, what he felt when he went to Germany after the war,” Spacey explained. “And the slow indoctrination that happened to him with a number of people who came into his life. And how he found a reason that he wasn’t able to succeed as the great writer he wanted to be. It’s a sad and long story. But I also need to seek to forgive.”
In the interview, Spacey also addressed the new documentary Spacey Unmaskedwhich premiered in the U.K. on May 6-7 (followed by a release on Max one week later), and featured 10 fresh accusations against the actor from various men in his past. Spacey was quick to point out that it’s unclear if there was payola involved with the men coming forward in the film to accuse him of sexual misdeeds.
“I don’t know why Channel 4 has not yet told the British public if they pay these individuals to tell these stories,” Spacey said. “My brother’s been paid a number of times for telling false and crazy stories. So we know that they approached people and said they would pay them. So, did they pay these individuals for telling these stories?”
Channel 4 did not immediately respond to The Hollywood Reporter‘s request for comment.
The actor, who in the documentary is accused by a House of Cards security team member and a former Marine who worked with Spacey on a film of making sexual advances toward them, also produced email correspondences with these two men that he said occurred well after the alleged incidents took place. One of the men apparently sent a strategically posed nude photo to the actor after Spacey allegedly made an unwanted pass at him. The Marine who accused him of making a pass at him while watching Saving Private Ryan in 1998 sent Spacey a letter seeking work on a film over a decade later. Spacey, who said he’s never seen Steven Spielberg’s World War II drama, implied that this is evidence that the men were unbothered and carried on their relationship with him after the incidents discussed in Channel 4’s documentary.
The actor also shared that in recent years, as his personal wealth has vanished, he has been offered some roles in films, but has had his hopes of a career revival dashed when a single executive gets cold feet about his involvement with each project. Now, however, he has a trio of indie films set for release over the coming months and he hopes that he can at last get back to his true passion.
“What I hope for is that I have the opportunity to continue to tell stories. Because that’s what I feel I was put on this earth to do,” he told Morgan. “And if I’m lucky enough to have collaborators who are inspiring and excited to work with me and come together and put all of this in the past and I’m able to come on a film set and make sure that everyone’s having a good time, make sure that people are getting what they need to do the best work that they can … and that I’m part of making sure that everyone is treated right. And I’ve learned from my own mistakes.”
