Anthony Rapp has taken the stand.
The Rent actor testified during the Oct. 11 during Kevin Spacey‘s sexual misconduct trial, where he set the record straight on the reason he decided to come forward with allegations against the actor, per NBC News.
Back in 2017, Rapp accused Spacey of acting in a sexually inappropriate manner around him when Rapp was 14 years old. During the 2022 trial, Rapp’s lawyer said that the actor was moved to bring the allegation to a BuzzFeed News reporter after Rapp was exposed to an article where Lupita Nyong’o made a sexual harassment allegation against Harvey Weinstein. Harvey has denied all allegations of misconduct.
However, Spacey’s attorneys brought forth a screenshot of a text message conversation between Rapp and a BuzzFeed News reporter, which, as NBC News reports, seemingly revealed that Rapp had come forward with this allegation on Oct. 11 2017, eight days before the piece involving Nyong’o and Weinstein was published on Oct. 19, 2017.
Per NBC News, Rapp wrote in the text message chain, “I am wanting to speak out about someone else very powerful in the industry.”