Kevin Spacey receives standing ovation for monologue on cancel culture

Kevin Spacey received a standing ovation Monday night for delivering a Shakespearean monologue during a lecture decrying so-called “cancel culture.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spacey’s monologue was part of a lecture at Oxford University by Douglas Murray, associate editor of conservative newsmagazine The Spectator, in honor of the late conservative philosopher Roger Scrunton. Scrunton was “canceled” in 2019 after portions of an interview with the New Statesman in which he seemed to make offensive statements about George Soros, Chinese people, and Islam were posted online. He was later vindicated when the full transcript was released.

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The four men who testified against him in the trial described him as a “sexual bully.”

Murray, who defended Scrunton at the time and was responsible for publishing the unedited quotes from the New Statesman interview, encouraged people to “please always stand up for your friends, especially when they’re right.”

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“We cannot go on like this,” he said of “our era of cancelation and defenestration,” before comparing the 2019 controversy surrounding Scrunton to Shakespeare’s play Timon of Athens. He then invited Spacey out to recite a monologue from the play, about a wealthy Athenian who is shunned by the friends who benefited from his wealth when he falls on hard times.

Murray described Spacey as “one of the great actors of his generation and somebody I’m proud to call a friend.”

While neither Murray nor Spacey mentioned the allegations against the actor, Spacey’s participation in the event invited comparisons between himself, an actor accused of sexual assault, and the play’s title character, a man whose greedy friends abandon him after he goes broke. The audience gave Spacey a standing ovation.

Spacey has been accused by multiple men of sexual harassment and assault. In 2017, several men, including out actor Anthony Rapp, alleged that Spacey had sexually harassed or assaulted them as children or teens, offenses that allegedly took place as far back as the 1980s. A court later found Spacey not liable for damages sought by Rapp. All the other U.S. charges against Spacey were either dropped by prosecutors, dismissed by courts, or withdrawn by his accusers.

In 2020, Spacey was ordered via arbitration to pay $31 million to MRC, the studio that produced the Netflix series House of Cards, for allegedly violating its sexual harassment policy after crew members accused the actor of sexual misconduct. Spacey’s appeal to have the $31 million payment overturned was denied on August 4, 2022.

A 2017 investigation by London theater The Old Vic, where Spacey served as artistic director from 2005 to 2011, turned up 20 allegations of abuse or misconduct against the actor. Following the theater’s investigation, various criminal or civil proceedings against Spacey began taking place in various jurisdictions.

In July, a British jury found Spacey not guilty of nine counts of sexual assault after four men accused him of forcing himself on them between 2001 and 2013.