Kevin Spacey's Sexual Assault Accusers Keep Dying, Sparking Conspiracy Theories: What's Really Going On?
Three people connected to sexual assault allegations against Spacey are dead.
Getty Kevin Spacey has made a career playing underhanded, conniving and sometimes murderous characters — Keyser Söze, anyone? — until his fall from Hollywood grace over accusations of sexual misconduct.
Spacey had allegedly been harassing and groping men for years but his actions only came to light during the #MeToo era after actor Anthony Rapp shared his story of being propositioned by Spacey when Rapp was just 14. Once Rapp opened up about his experience, more accusations came flooding out.
Spacey's career came to a screeching halt after all the allegations came to light. He was fired from his series House of Cards due to accusations of misconduct on set, erased and replaced on a movie he'd been making about J. Paul Getty. and Netflix completely canceled a biopic about Gore Vidal that he had been slated to star in. Moreover, he found himself facing legal trouble over two of the cases against him.
Now, several people connected with accusations against Spacey have died. The conspiracy theories are starting to rage on the internet and people are wondering if Spacey has gone Söze in real life.
How did Kevin Spacey's accusers die?
1. Kevin Spacey's history of sexual misconduct is extensive.
One of the most striking revelations of the #MeToo movement has been that there are men who commit sexual misconduct for years and get away with it. Harvey Weinstein is a prime example; it was an open secret in Hollywood that he would lure young women to his hotel room then harass or assault them. Other men, like disgraced Today Show host Matt Lauer and CBS President Les Moonves had similar histories of abuse. Kevin Spacey has joined their ranks as a long-time abuser as well.
One of the earliest accusations about his came from Broadway star and Star Trek Discovery actor Anthony Rapp who recalled an incident where Spacey made sexual advances on him. He was only 14 at the time.
In his exposé, Rapp described an incident from 1986, where he had been at a party and Spacey found him in a room by himself where Rapp had retreated to watch TV. Rapp recalled that Spacey seemed drunk.
"He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold. But I don't, like, squirm away initially, because I'm like, 'What's going on?' And then he lays down on top of me. He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp said. “I don't know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”
2. Spacey had a pattern of groping and propositioning men.
After Rapp shared his tale, other people who had worked with Spacey started to talk about their experiences with the Oscar winner. Actor Roberto Cavazos recalled Spacey groping him while they were working at the Old Vic in London — the theatre would later receive up to 20 more allegations about Spacey dating from his tenure as artistic director there. Filmmaker Tony Montana said Spacey groped him. Richard Dreyfuss' son Harry said Spacey groped him when he was a teenager.
The torrent of accusations put a swift end to Spacey's career. House of Cards announced they would cut their final season short and cut Spacey's character out before then the finale. A movie he was in the midst of filming fired him and reshot his scenes with Christopher Plummer. His non-profit in England closed abruptly.
There were also legal repercussions. He was arraigned on criminal charges stemming from accusations of groping a teenager in Massachusetts and a Los Angeles massage therapist sued him, saying the actor had forced him to touch his genitals during a massage in 2016.
3. How did Kevin Spacey's accusers die? The first Spacey accuser's death: Linda Culkin in May 2019.
Linda Culkin was a nursing assistant in Massachusetts who claimed that a patient told her that he had been groped by Spacey in 2009. She became obsessed with the actor after that and stalked and harassed him for years.
In 2014, she was sentenced to 51 months in jail for making bomb threats against the actor and mailing an envelope containing white powder to people close to Spacey. There were never any repercussions against Spacey over the details Culkin apparently knew about his history of assault. But she had been a thorn in his side for a long time.
In May of 2019, Culkin died after being struck by a car. She was allegedly crossing against the light in a busy intersection. The driver tried to avoid her and ended up hitting another car in the process. No charges were filed.
4. The second Spacey accuser's death: A 'John Doe' massage therapist in September 2019.
A Los Angeles area massage therapist who has only been identified as John Doe filed suit against the actor in 2018. The case alleges Spacey forced John Doe to grab him by the genitals twice during a massage in the actor's home in 2016. Additional filings in the case indicated that the Doe lawyers were also working with two other massage therapists with similar claims but who were not named due to concerns about their safety and privacy.
The parties in the case had just reached terms for the trial over the summer and they were expected to go to court later this year. Then John Doe died, though no cause of death was ever revealed.
The plaintiff's lawyer Genie Harrison expressed shock at her client's sudden death. "It is true that Mr. Doe recently died," said Harrison. "His untimely death was, to his family, a devastating shock that they are struggling to process and is so recent that they have not yet held his funeral service."
She went on to say "Mr. Doe was a dignified, kind, middle-aged man traumatized by Spacey’s alleged sexually depraved attack. As a result of this case, other victims from around the world have reached out to our firm. Mr. Doe believed their harrowing stories, and in his final months, he looked forward to standing up for all of them. His fight for justice is still very much alive."
John Doe's family could continue the suit on behalf of his estate but it is not clear yet if they plan to do so.
5. The third Spacey accuser's death: Ari Behn died by suicide in December 2019.
A third accuser has died just this week in Norway. Ari Behn, who was once married to Princess Martha Louise of Denmark, told his story of being groped by Spacey in 2017. He recalled being at a party for the 2007 Nobel Prize honorees and was seated at a table with Spacey. “After five minutes he said, ‘Hey, let’s go out and have a cigarette.' Then he puts his hand under the table and grabs me by the b***s,” Behn said. Spacey didn't respond to the allegations.
This week, a representative for the family announced that Behn had died by suicide. "It is with great sadness in our hearts that we, the very closest relatives of Ari Behn, must announce that he took his own life today. We ask for respect for our privacy in the time to come," said Geir Håkonsund, the representative, confirming that Behn took his own life on Christmas Day.
Behn was an author and artist.
6. Could all these Kevin Spacey-related deaths be part of a conspiracy?
The fourth development in the Kevin Spacey saga was a lawsuit about him groping a teenager in Massachusetts. In 2017, former Boston TV news anchor Heather Unruh announced that Spacey had groped her 18-year-old son in a restaurant the previous summer.
She filed both criminal and civil charges against the actor. Both cases have since been dropped. A missing phone and missing text messages caused a lack of evidence that stymied the criminal case. The civil case was dropped shortly after with no explanation.
Three deaths and a criminal case that unraveled are all enough to set the internet talking about conspiracies. Actor Corey Feldman took to Twitter in an all caps rant about the situation, saying "LIKE...REALLY?!? 3RD ACCUSER DIES SUDDENLY? WHAT R THE CIRCUMSTANCES? DO WE KNOW IT WAS A REAL SUICIDE?? I MEAN IS ANYBODY INVESTIGATING THIS GUY 4 POTENTIAL ORCHESTRATION OF OR CONSPIRACY 2 MURDER, LIKE REALLY? I THINK ITS TIME A CASE IS OPENED! #TRUTH"
Another Twitter user referenced Spacey's conniving House of Cards character Frank Underwood, saying, "This makes the 2nd Spacey accuser that’s turned up dead under dubious circumstances. New conspiracy theory: Kevin actually believes he's Frank and starts acting like him irl."
A more realistic social media user wrote, "I don't know if Kevin Spacey ordered the murder of this guy, obviously there's no way for me to know that. But what Spacey did to this man was certainly a factor in his death. Not even on a conspiracy level, I hold spacey accountable for this, if only for what he put him through."
Is it a conspiracy?
Spacey hasn't commented on the accusations but he did post an extremely weird video of himself in character as Frank Underwood in which he admonished people to "kill them with kindness" when dealing with critics. Spooky, nonetheless.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.