Actor Kevin Spacey will have to pay the show’s production company nearly $31 million House of Cardsfrom which he was fired on sexual harassment charges, a judge ruled on Thursday, dismissing his appeal.
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The actor, twice Oscar winner for American Beauty et Usual Suspectsis also prosecuted in the United Kingdom for four sexual assaults on three men.
In 2017, Kevin Spacey had been the subject of a wave of accusations of harassment and sexual assault, which had put an abrupt end to his career, in the wake of the #MeToo movement and the Harvey Weinstein affair.
MRC, the production company behind House of Cardson political intrigues in Washington, sought damages for lost income attributed to the dismissal of the actor from this series.
This had forced her to make a major overhaul of the sixth season.
In 2020, an arbitration had concluded that Kevin Spacey must compensate for the losses and the costs related to these changes.
But his lawyers had claimed that the person in charge of the arbitration had exceeded his prerogatives by taking into account certain evidence.
On Thursday, however, Judge Mel Red Recana confirmed that the fallen Hollywood icon should pay nearly $31 million in damages and litigation costs.
The judge recalled that, according to the conclusions of the arbitration, Kevin Spacey had violated the terms of his contract because of his alleged behavior.
Kevin Spacey has always denied sexually harassing anyone.
In House of Cardsthe actor played the unscrupulous politician Frank Underwood.
In mid-July, he pleaded not guilty in London to sexual assaults committed between March 2005 and April 2013.
In the United States, Kevin Spacey had been charged with indecent assault and sexual assault in the state of Massachusetts, on the East Coast. He was accused of having, in July 2016, got his hands on the sex of an 18-year-old young man employed in a bar, after having made him drink.
But the charges were dropped in July 2019.