Kevin Spacey’s bizarre video monologue has garnered more than 8 million views on YouTube in just three days, as the curious flock to see his seeming rebuttal to felony indecent assault and battery charges he faces in Massachusetts. The viewership crossed the milestone as new details emerged Thursday about the alleged groping incident.
The Spacey video, titled Let Me Be Frank, shows the actor on his own YouTube channel delivering a monologue using his former House of Cards character Frank Underwood’s persona.
In the video, Spacey says, “But you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence, would you? You wouldn’t rush to judgments without facts, would you? Did you?” The dialog appears to be an attempt to address the latest accusation against him.
While impressive, the numbers on Spacey’s video pale next to others. Ariana Grande’s hit, Thank U, Next passed 46 million viewers in its first 24 hours, edging boy band BTS’s 45.9 million total. The BTS record was set in August, eclipsing Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do.
Spacey’s Dec. 24 video was posted as news arrived that he is charged with a count of felony indecent assault and battery and will be arraigned January 7 in the Massachusetts court.
An 18-year-old has accused Spacey of groping him in a Nantucket, Massachusetts bar in 2016. The accuser also revealed that he took Snapchat video of the alleged assault. The Massachusetts State Police report mentions the video, and it is reportedly included in the criminal complaint.
The teen, the son of former WCVB-TV news anchor Heather Unruh, told State Police that he captured Snapchat video of Spacey touching him on his phone as the alleged assault occurred, which he said continued for several minutes, and sent the video to his girlfriend to prove what had happened.
According to The Associated Press, Spacey’s lawyers said at a hearing last week the video shows someone’s hand touching another person’s shirt, but does not show anyone being groped and that there’s not enough evidence for their client to be charged.
The charge comes more than a year after the allegation was made against the former House of Cards star.
Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe told the Boston Globe that a public show-cause hearing was held in the case on Dec. 20. During that hearing, Clerk Magistrate Ryan Kearney issued a criminal complaint for the charge “against Kevin S. Fowler, also known as Kevin Spacey.”
In November 2017, Unruh held an emotional news conference in which she publicly accused Spacey, saying her son was a “star-struck, straight, 18-year-old young man who had no idea that the famous actor was an alleged sexual predator or that he was about to become his next victim.”
“There was no consent,” she said, describing her son’s account of Spacey having brought him “drink after drink” at the Club Car Restaurant in Nantucket. Her son, who was a busboy at the restaurant, had told Spacey he was of legal drinking age, though he was not. “And when my son was drunk Spacey made his move” putting his hand down her son’s pants and grabbing his genitals, she alleged.
Unruh said her son reported the incident to Nantucket police in the fall of 2017 and provided evidence to investigators.