Kevin Spacey set to face civil sex assault claims in court in 2026

Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey faces another legal battle in London next year over civil sexual assault allegations, three years after he was cleared of criminal charges.

The three people are suing the 66-year-old Oscar winner in civil cases linked to his time as artistic director of the Old Vic theatre.

All three of the claims in the latest proceedings "relate to alleged sexual assaults by the defendant (Spacey) of younger men he came into contact with whilst working at the Old Vic theatre, two as young actors", court documents said.

The alleged offences took place between 2000 and 2015.

Spacey has formally denied two of the claims and is yet to file a defence with the court in the third.

Spacey was acquitted of nine criminal sexual charges alleged by four men following a trial in London in 2023. Two of the claimants in the new civil proceedings were involved in that case.

One of the claimants, actor Ruari Cannon, is also suing the Old Vic theatre. He has waived his right to anonymity, while the other two claimants cannot be named.

One man, known as LNP, alleges that Spacey "deliberately assaulted" him on 12 occasions between 2000 and 2005. The other, referred to as GHI, says he met Spacey through a workshop at the Old Vic theatre and claims he "suffered psychiatric damage and financial loss" as a result of an assault in 2008.

At a preliminary hearing for the civil cases at the High Court yesterday, Judge Christina Lambert set a provisional three-week window for all three to be heard there on 12 October 2026. She said it is still to be determined whether the claims are heard in a single trial, or in three consecutive trials.

Prosecution lawyers are calling for the cases to be combined into one single trial, while the defence said they should be heard separately.

Spacey, who has always denied any wrongdoing, has seen his stellar career destroyed by several allegations of sexual offences, which first emerged in 2017 as part of the #MeToo movement.

In 2022, a New York court concluded that Spacey did not molest actor Anthony Rapp, who had accused him of sexual assault in the early 1980s when Rapp was 14.

The actor recently announced in an interview with The Telegraph that he is homeless.

“I’m living in hotels, I’m living in Airbnbs,” he said. “I’m going where the work is. I literally have no home, that’s what I’m attempting to explain… The costs over these last seven years have been astronomical. I’ve had very little coming in and everything going out.”

Spacey then released an Instagram video in which he clarified his initial comments, saying: “I feel the need to respond. Not to the press, but to the thousands of people who have reached out over the past few days offering me a place to stay, or have just asked if I’m OK.”

“And to all of you, let me first say that I am truly touched by your generosity, full stop. But I feel it would be disingenuous of me to allow you to believe that I am indeed homeless in the colloquial sense.”

He went on to criticise how the Telegraph story was framed, adding: “I’ve been working nearly non-stop this entire year, and for that I have so much to be grateful for. And there are many people, as we all know, who are indeed actually living on the streets, or in their cars, or in terrible financial situations, and my heart goes out to them.”

Spacey said it was “clear from the article” that he is “not one of them”, or that he was “attempting to say that (he) was”, continuing: “Which is why it was a shame that The Telegraph chose to undermine the work of their own journalist by selling him out with a knowingly misleading headline for the sake of clicks."

Earlier this year, Spacey dismissed Guy Pearce’s claims of being “targeted” by the actoron the set of LA Confidential, urging his former co-star: “Grow up, Guy Pearce. You are not a victim”.