Following recent allegations made against Kevin Spacey by fellow actor Anthony Rapp, George Takei is making a clear distinction about those who harass or assault others.
During an interview with BuzzFeed News, Rapp alleged that Spacey sexually harassed him at a party in 1986 when he was just 14 years old. Spacey responded by saying he didn’t recall the encounter, but apologized for his “inappropriate drunken behavior” before publicly coming out for the first time.
Takei said such offenses aren’t about sexuality, but rather about abuse of power.
“When power is used in a non-consensual situation, it is a wrong,” Takei told The Hollywood Reporter Monday. “For Anthony Rapp, he has had to live with the memory of this experience of decades ago. For Kevin Spacey, who claims not to remember the incident, he was the older, dominant one who had his way. Men who improperly harass or assault do not do so because they are gay or straight — that is a deflection. They do so because they have the power, and they chose to abuse it.”
At the time of the reported incident, Rapp was appearing in Broadway’s “Precious Sons” and Spacey, then 26, was acting in a revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” After meeting at an event, Spacey invited Rapp to a party at his apartment, where the alleged encounter occurred.
“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,” Rapp told BuzzFeed. “He was trying to seduce me. I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”
Takei joins other celebrities, including Zachary Quinto and Lance Bass, who have criticized Spacey’s response.
Spacey has long eluded speculation over his sexuality, vacillating between highlighting his heterosexual relationships to calling the rumors “gossip.”
