Kevin Spacey denies sexual misconduct claims during testimony

Kevin Spacey testified in a New York courtroom Monday that he never made a sexual advance on actor Anthony Rapp, who has sued, claiming the Academy Award-winning actor tried to take him to bed when he was 14 years old.

Identifying himself as "Kevin Spacey Fowler," the actor was asked about Rapp's claims that he was watching television on a bed in Spacey's apartment after a party when a then 26, fully clothed Spacey entered the room, lifted him up like a groom carries a bride, laid him across the bed and climbed partially on top of him.

Rapp said he wriggled free and briefly went into a bathroom before fleeing the apartment, but not before Spacey followed him to the door and asked if he was sure he wanted to leave.

"They are not true," Spacey said of the allegations.

Then he was asked if he has been private about his personal life over his career.

"I work in a very complicated family dynamic," he said, saying rants by his white supremacist and neo-Nazi father when he was a youngster led him to hate bigotry and intolerance.

As Spacey became interested in theatre, he said, he endured the screams of his father who "used to yell at me at the idea that I might be gay."

Spacey granted partial dismissal by judge

Spacey's testimony began two hours after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan threw out a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress after lawyers for Rapp finished their presentation of evidence. Kaplan said elements of the claim duplicate Rapp's claim that he was a victim of assault and battery.

Spacey's lawyer argued for dismissal of the case on the grounds that Rapp's attorneys had failed to prove his claims.

Spacey was an Oscar-winning actor popular on the Netflix series House of Cards when claims by Rapp and others in 2017 derailed his career.

Rapp was performing in Precious Sons on Broadway in 1986 when he met Spacey, then 26.