Kevin Spacey Tells Bill Maher He Feels ‘Less in Jail’

Nine years after allegations derailed his career, Kevin Spacey told Bill Maher on “Club Random” that he feels his situation has improved and that he feels “less in jail” now than in past years, pointing to court outcomes and saying people are starting to “hear

Kevin Spacey didn’t talk like a man waiting for his reputation to thaw. On Monday’s episode of Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, the actor said he feels his career is finally climbing again—and that the difference is visceral.

“I feel less in jail than I did,” Spacey told Maher. “When people actually start to hear the facts, understand what we won in courts, I think people now look at this and think, ‘Maybe nine years has been enough.’”

Spacey added that he feels “much more welcomed. ” and he believes “things are moving in the direction that we hoped they were moving in.” He also offered a sports analogy: “If I had been a sports figure. I would have been benched for seven games. If you’re hitting home runs, they want you on the field.”.

The conversation inevitably circled back to the accusations that overturned his career in 2017. That year, actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of assaulting him when he was still a teenager. Rapp’s allegations prompted multiple others to come forward with similar accusations against Spacey.

Rapp later filed a $40 million sexual assault and battery lawsuit, but a New York jury ultimately found Spacey not liable on all counts.

Spacey told Maher that he believes those legal outcomes matter. “There are certain cases where part of something is true. but it’s been rethought. it’s been redesigned or it’s been entirely made up. certainly in the case of Anthony Rapp. which is a case that we won in federal court in New York. ” he said. He added that he and his team have won “in every court we’ve gone into with a jury.”.

Maher, though, pushed back. The comedian said he wasn’t fully well-versed in the details of the allegations, but he said the number of accusations and alleged victims made him think there was “too much smoke to be no fire.”

Spacey answered directly. “I never said there was no fire,” he said. “It just wasn’t a raging forest fire. It was a small kitchen fire that could have been put out with an extinguisher.” He also added, “I hit on a lot of guys.”

The pair also revisited the moment Spacey publicly came out as gay. In the same statement in which he denied Rapp’s allegations. Spacey formally came out in 2017. a move that drew criticism from many. Reflecting on it, Spacey told Maher, “I was fiercely closeted. I thought I was so clever that nobody knew, but, of course, kind of everybody knew.”.

The professional fallout from 2017 was swift and high-profile. Spacey was replaced as J. Paul Getty by the late Christopher Plummer in director Ridley Scott’s 2017 thriller “All the Money in the World.” He was also fired from “House of Cards. ” the Netflix thriller that he led for the first five of its six seasons.

Even after the courts, there were still consequences. In 2024, Spacey revealed that he owed “many millions” in legal fees. He also said the Baltimore home he had been living in for years was being foreclosed on and put up for auction, adding, “I’m not sure where I am going to live now.”

Since his public cancellation in 2017, Spacey has appeared in only a handful of low-budget and European productions.

Kevin Spacey Bill Maher Club Random Real Time Anthony Rapp sexual assault lawsuit House of Cards All the Money in the World Ridley Scott Oscars American Beauty The Usual Suspects foreclosure legal fees