After years of Hollywood rumours it’s no surprise Kevin Spacey has come out as gay
FEW in Hollywood were shocked by Spacey’s confirmation he is gay.
The suggestion was first aired in 1997, when Esquire magazine ran a front page headlined “Kevin Spacey has a Secret” and implied, to his then fury, that he was homosexual.
The LA Confidential star refused to say one way or the other but instead hit back, likening the piece to US Senator McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt after World War II.
In 1999 however, he made an about-turn on his policy of not discussing his private life by telling Playboy mag gay rumours made him more attractive to women.
“Women want to be the one to turn me around — I let them,” he said.
And when The Sunday Times asked directly if he was gay, Spacey replied: “The answer to that is no. But why should it matter?”
In 2000 a photo published in US gossip magazine Star appeared to show Spacey massaging an unknown male and lying with his head in the man’s lap.
They were said to have held hands, cuddled and stroked each other for two hours in a California park.
An onlooker reportedly said at the time: “It was a very intimate rendezvous.
“If my wife saw me with another man like that, she would be divorcing me.”
In 2008 another snap showed Spacey in a club with a man draped over his lap — his nude rear on display.
And when gossip website Gawker called for tales of Kevin Spacey in March 2015, it was inundated with unverified claims, including a man who claimed Spacey felt his bum.
Another, from a waiter, claimed he propositioned a man in a hotel.
A third claimed that while filming Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — in which Spacey plays a gay character — he would frequent gay bars in Savannah, Georgia, and invite a select group back to his own private party.
“As the night grew, the crowd would shrink to Kevin and the boys,” it was said.
In public, however, Spacey has been keen to draw attention to his relationships with women.
He is thought to have dated actresses Helen Hunt, his co-star in Pay It Forward, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
And a high school girlfriend claimed she got hot and steamy with a young Spacey in a car.
He was reported to have shared an eight-year relationship with You’ve Got Mail actress Dianne Dreyer from 1992, and declared his love for her while accepting his Best Actor Oscar for American Beauty in 2000.
The following month in She magazine he said he regretted not setting the record straight about the notorious Esquire piece.
He said: “A couple of years ago, a discussion about having children came up between my girlfriend and me. I was like, ‘No, I’m working on my career’. Then I found myself, to my surprise, talking about it. Actually, I think children are something I definitely want, and I think my life is leading in that direction.”
The actor’s estranged brother, Randy B Fowler — a Rod Stewart impersonator — has claimed that Kevin is “a bit of a weirdo”.
He said: “He has made an art of keeping his life a secret. His private life is very different to his public life. I find that very sad.”
This June, while hosting the Tony Awards for Broadway, Spacey himself mocked the gay rumours.
Dressed in a black and gold dress he sang “I’m coming out,” before jokingly adding: “Wait, no, wait.”
Spacey had also hit headlines following a baffling incident in a South London park in April, 2004.
The bloodied star walked into Kennington Police station at 5am saying he’d been attacked for his phone, sparking a police hunt.
Two days later he said he had been tricked into handing over his phone and fell over his dog while trying to chase the thief.
Asked why he was in the park in the early hours, he said: “Walking your dog in the park is a perfectly normal thing to do. My doggy had to go.”