Kevin Spacey Responds to Guy Pearce ‘L.A. Confidential’ Allegations

Kevin Spacey has issued a response to Guy Pearce, after the latter opened up about his uncomfortable experiences working with Spacey on the 1997 crime thriller L.A. Confidential. In a video posted to social media, Spacey appears unsympathetic and somewhat disdainful as he says Pearce is “not a victim” and needs to “grow up.”

Spacey responded to Pearce in a video posted to X (below), in which the disgraced actor counters the allegations with a claim of his own: Pearce flew down to visit Spacey on the set of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the 1997 thriller directed by Clint Eastwood. While we await the inevitable receipts either proving or disproving Spacey’s claim, the actor went on to say that he’s been receiving requests for comment from the press. “Do you really want to know what my response is?” Spacey asks, before answering his own question: “Grow up.”

Pearce recently appeared on an episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, where he revisited comments he made in 2018 about his experience with Spacey. At the time, Pearce stopped short of making outright allegations, instead calling Spacey a “handsy guy.” In the latest interview, Pearce expanded on those comments, explaining that he tried to brush off Spacey’s behavior back then, but he has a different perspective on it now:

“Ah, that’s nothing. Ah, no, that’s nothing. I did that for five months, and really I was sort of scared of Kevin because he’s quite an aggressive man. He’s extremely charming and brilliant at what he does — really impressive, etc. He holds a room remarkably. But I was young and susceptible, and he targeted me, no question.”

Pearce went on to explain that he sort of walked back his 2018 comments after the fact because he was hesitant to describe himself as a victim, “even though I probably was a victim to a degree,” he said, adding, “I was certainly not a victim by any means to the extent that other people have been to sexual predators.” The actor went on to say that he was so uncomfortable filming with Spacey that he told his wife that he only felt safe on the days when his co-star Simon Baker was on set because Spacey was more fixated on Baker.

Kevin Spacey Has Been Accused of Misconduct by More Than a Dozen Men

Spacey was first publicly accused of sexual misconduct in 2017, shortly after a series of allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein were published in the New York Times. Amid the #MeToo movement, actor Anthony Rapp came forward to allege that a 27-year-old Spacey attempted to sexually assault him at a party in the ’80s when he was just 15 years old. After saying that he had no memory of the encounter and apologizing, Spacey used the opportunity to come out as gay. In 2020, Rapp sued Spacey for sexual assault and battery, but a jury found Spacey not liable due to a lack of evidence.

In total, 15 men have accused Spacey of sexual misconduct. Following the allegations, Netflix cut ties with Spacey and the actor was fired from the political thriller series House of Cards. Spacey has denied all allegations and has never been convicted of sexual misconduct.

That said, Spacey had a notorious reputation in Hollywood that was rarely openly addressed, but occasionally fodder for dark jokes on TV. Julie Klausner included numerous jokes about Spacey’s alleged misbehavior in her Hulu comedy series Difficult People, not unlike 30 Rock‘s “prescient” jokes about Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby.