Gay Hollywood shuns Kevin Spacey: 'Don't hide under the rainbow'

Kevin Spacey in House of Cards. Photo / Supplied

Kevin Spacey may have finally come out of the closet yesterday, but his fellow LGBT Hollywood heavy hitters have delivered a firm message: We wish you hadn't.

Spacey's public statement announcing that he now "choose[s] to live as a gay man" came just hours after actor Anthony Rapp went public with an allegation that Spacey had drunkenly groped him at a party in 1986.

Spacey would have been 26 at the time of the alleged incident, while Rapp was just 14.

Out gay Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto, who acted alongside Spacey in the 2011 thriller Margin Call, led the charge against his former co-star, issuing a statement of his own that has now been shared on Twitter far more than Spacey's initial announcement.

"It is deeply sad and troubling that this is how Kevin Spacey has chosen to come out," Quinto wrote. "Not by standing up as a point of pride - in the light of all his many awards and accomplishments - thus inspiring tens of thousands of struggling LGBTQ kids around the world. But as a calculated manipulation to deflect attention from a very serious accusation that he attempted to molest one.

"I am sorry to hear of Anthony Rapp's experience and subsequent suffering. And I am sorry that Kevin only saw fit to acknowledge his truth when he thought it would serve him - just as his denial served him for so many years. May Anthony Rapp's vice be the one which is amplified here. Victims' voices are the ones that deserve to be heard."
Other high-profile gay celebs praised Quinto for his statement:

I couldn’t have said it better myself. https://t.co/ZjwQ6fieKC

— Jesse Tyler Ferguson (@jessetyler) October 30, 2017

Well said Zach https://t.co/c0HdvT2h1w

— Andy Cohen (@Andy) October 30, 2017

Gay comedian and actor Billy Eichner declared that Spacey had done the impossible in finding a bad time to come out:

That Kevin Spacey statement. Nope. Absolutely not. Nope.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 30, 2017

Kevin Spacey has just invented something that has never existed before: a bad time to come out.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 30, 2017

If I ever commit a crime, I'm going to come out as straight.

— billy eichner (@billyeichner) October 31, 2017

While fellow gay comic Wanda Skyes tweeted Spacey was not welcome to "hide" in the LGBT community:

No no no no no! You do not get to “choose” to hide under the rainbow! Kick rocks! https://t.co/xJDGAxDjxz

— Wanda Sykes (@iamwandasykes) October 30, 2017

Westworld actor Evan Rachel Wood, who identifies as bisexual, tweeted that Spacey's statement was "the last dying fart of a predator who has been exposed".

Other LGBT Hollywood figures and their allies penned statements of their own, damning Spacey for conflating sexually predatory behaviour with homosexuality:

pic.twitter.com/vkw4jyR7Hx

— Krista Vernoff (@KristaVernoff) October 30, 2017

For Spacey, the fallout has been swift - less than 24 hours later, his acclaimed Netflix series House of Cards has been cancelled as the streaming service released a statement saying it was "deeply troubled" by the allegations he faced.

The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences said today that it will no longer give its 2017 International Emmy Founders Award to Spacey, making the announcement in this succinct letter:

Re: Kevin Spacey. Screenshot of a letter. One sentence. pic.twitter.com/mqFqsh5PFC

— MZS (@mattzollerseitz) October 31, 2017