Kevin Spacey denies he is a sex addict in court papers

Actor Kevin Spacey continues his efforts to restore his image – and has denied in court papers that he is a sex addict.

Spacey, who finished making an upcoming low-budget thriller Peter Five Eight last year, will try to clear his name in New York court next month.

In documents filed in advance, the disgraced actor said he did not seek treatment for sex addiction when he checked into an Arizona drug rehabilitation center in 2017, after he was first charged with sexual misconduct.

He did reveal that he was “emotionally as vulnerable as I’ve ever been in my life” because he had just come out as gay.

At the time, Spacey was fired from the Netflix drama House Of Cards; and the American website Buzzfeed had accused him of sexual advances to a 14-year-old aspiring actor. Anthony Rapp, who is now 50, will face Spacey in a civil suit in New York, demanding $40 million for inflicting violence and inflicting emotional distress. In a statement in the case, the actor was asked by one of Mr Rapp’s lawyers in late 2017 if he was in “limbo” after the Buzzfeed article came out with Mr Rapp’s claims in it.

Spacey said, “There was a time when I didn’t know what was going to happen.” He found out on Thanksgiving that year that he had been “expelled” from House Of Cards, Netflix’s adaptation of Michael Dobbs’ political novel, in which he starred as Machiavellian Congressman Francis Underwood.

By this time, Spacey had already entered rehab in Wickenburg, Arizona. When asked what kind of rehabilitation he was undergoing, Spacey said he was “not sure to what extent I can talk about the work I was going to do there.”

But he added: “All I can tell you is that I was just as vulnerable emotionally as I had ever been in my life. I just came out [as gay], after being private about my personal life for over 30 years. I was accused of things in the media and started taking care of myself.’

Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood and Robin Wright as Claire Underwood on the hit TV show House of Cards. Spacey, who finished making an upcoming low-budget thriller Peter Five Eight last year, will make a bid to clear his name in New York court next month.

Spacey referenced a post on Twitter in October 2017 in which he said he could not remember meeting Mr Rapp.

But he said that if he behaved as Mr Rapp claimed, he would “owe him a sincere apology for deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In the statement, the actor was asked if he was being treated in rehab for alcohol addiction, but his lawyers objected.

Spacey won an Oscar for his performance in 1995’s The Usual Suspects and a second for American Beauty in 2000. In 2015, he was awarded an honorary knighthood and an Olivier Prize for his contributions to British theatre. But ever since the allegations surfaced, he’s become something of a Hollywood pariah.

In August, a judge in the US ruled that he must pay $31 million to MRC, producers of House Of Cards. He was fired after allegations of inappropriate behavior against young men he had worked with – his departure required costly storyline changes.