Sylvie Claire / November 21, 2021
U.S. actor Kevin Spacey has been ordered to pay $31 million to the company that produced the series House of Cards, in which he played the lead character until he was fired following accusations of sexual harassment, according to legal documents released Monday.
MRC, the production company behind the hit series about political intrigue in Washington, D.C., was seeking damages for lost revenue attributed to the actor's exit from the series after accusations against him of sexual harassment and abuse.
In the published legal document, MRC explains that after these accusations of harassment, the company had suspended the actor and launched an internal investigation that revealed that the star of the film American Beauty had indeed been guilty of such conduct.
This wave of accusations had put an abrupt end to the career of the actor, 62, in the middle of the #Metoo movement denouncing sexual abuse in Hollywood after the revelations about producer Harvey Weinstein.
The two-time Oscar-winning actor played an unscrupulous politician in all five seasons of the series House of Cards before accusations of sexual harassment appeared in the press.
The departure of the actor forced the producers to reorganize the series, which resulted in substantial losses, said MRC, which also said it was never aware of any wrongdoing on the part of Kevin Spacey before the harassment accusations were revealed.
The script had to be reworked to exclude the character played by Kevin Spacey and reorganize the whole sixth season, reduced from 13 to eight episodes.
MRC had initiated this procedure in 2019. The same year, the prosecution of the American actor, charged with indecent assault and sexual assault in the US state of Massachusetts, had been dropped.