Elton John Testifies as a Witness in Kevin Spacey's Defense
Elton John and his husband David Furnish spoke in court on Monday to testify on behalf of actor Kevin Spacey. Spacey stands accused of a dozen different incidents of sexual misconduct, and on Monday the trial addressed one alleged assault against a driver in 2004 or 2005. The driver claims Spacey grabbed him on their way to John and Furnish's charity event in those years, but John and Furnish provided documentation to the contrary.
John and Furnish testified remotely via video chat, according to a report by The Associated Press. The accuser claims that he was hired to drive Spacey to John and Furnish's charity ball in Windsor in either 2004 or 2005, and that the actor made aggressive sexual advances on him, grabbing his crotch before backing off. John and Furnish testified that Spacey only attended their event once in the year 2001, and he was not there in 2004 or 2005. They provided photos from the event to back up their claim. This matched with Spacey's testimony that he had not attended the ball at all in those years.
John and Furnish reportedly testified separately but their stories corroborated each other. John recalled Spacey arriving in the U.K. for the event, saying: "He arrived in a white tie. He came on a private jet and he came straight to the ball." They also remembered Spacey purchasing a Mini Cooper at auction on behalf of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Spacey then spent the night at John and Furnish's house afterward.
Spacey has answered for several other allegations since this trial began, and has not denied all of them outright in this manner. Last week, the actor defended himself by saying he is just a "big flirt." He admitted to one incident but described it as a drunken, "clumsy" pass at another person, not an assault. On the other hand, he denied one account as "pure fantasy."
Spacey has faced at least 15 specific accusations of sexual misconduct in the public eye, beginning in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp shared his story with BuzzFeed News. Rapp went on to sue Spacey in 2020 for sexual assault, sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Spacey was found not liable in that case last year, though the cases in the U.K. will be tried by a different legal system.
Spacey did lose one case in the U.S. against himself personally and his production companies, which worked on House of Cards. It claims that Spacey violated the production studio's sexual harassment policy. Spacey was found liable in that case and ordered to pay the production company $31 million. Last summer, he tried to dispute the ruling but was denied. There was another case against Spacey in Los Angeles Superior Court, but the accuser passed away before it went to trial.
It's unclear when or even if Spacey will ever be finished with these legal proceedings, but in the meantime the actor's career has not halted entirely. Last year, he appeared in the independent film The Man Who Drew God, which got generally negative reviews. According to his IMDb page, Spacey has three other movies in post-production, but at least one of them, a biopic about Gore Vidal, was dropped by Netflix after accusations against Spacey went public.