Kevin Spacey will have to pay the House of Cards production company nearly $31 million, a judge ruled Thursday, rejecting his appeal. The actor had been fired from the series following accusations of sexual harassment.
The actor, twice Oscar winner for “American Beauty” and “Usual Suspects”, is also being 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 Cards,” about political intrigue in Washington, was seeking damages for lost revenue attributed to the actor’s dismissal from that series. This had forced her to make a major overhaul of the sixth season.
Terms of contract violated
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.