Like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Al Franken, Kevin Spacey was one of the biggest and most notorious men brought down by the #MeToo movement during the fall of 2017. And like those men and many others, Spacey is still paying for the results of his inappropriate and criminal actions years later.
CNN’s Chloe Melas has reported that “an arbitrator has ordered Kevin Spacey to pay almost $31 million to Media Rights Capital, the production company behind House of Cards, the Netflix series in which the actor starred for five seasons until he was fired in 2017.”
According to Melas, “the revelation came in a petition filed on Monday, Nov. 22, in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, in which MRC is asking the court ‘to confirm the award in its favor and enter judgment against Spacey and his loan-out and producing companies.’”
The legal case against Spacey began after Netflix cut ties with him in light of the sexual misconduct allegations. Following that blow to their production, MRC filed court documents alleging that they had lost millions of dollars due to his actions and the breach in his contractual obligations. The company then also filed paperwork “rendering” Spacey liable for those losses.
Previously, in 2017, following a report on CNN, “several current and former members of the House of Cards production staff came forward with allegations of sexual harassment,” Melas said. “One person also accused Spacey, who was an executive producer on the series, of sexual assault.”
Melas reported that prior to the allegations related to the House of Cards production, “actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that the actor made a sexual advance toward him at a party in 1986 when he was 14 years old. Following Rapp’s claims, Spacey issued a statement claiming he did not recall the incident and apologized for what he said would have been ‘deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.’”
After news of Spacey’s behavior broke at the height of the #MeToo era, production company MRC said it halted production on the series “to address any concerns of the show’s cast and crew.”
Following the settlement decision by the arbitrator, the company released a statement affirming its satisfaction with the decision.
“The safety of our employees, sets and work environments is of paramount importance to MRC and why we set out to push for accountability,” MRC said.
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