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Kevin Spacey has spoken out about his struggles growing up gay and his fear of coming out publicly due to his father, who Spacey describes as a “white supremacist” and a “neo-Nazi”.

Spacey made the comments while testifying in a New York court on Monday, October 17, as a part of a current lawsuit from Anthony Rapp, who has accused the actor of sexual assault when he was 14 years old.

Spacey described his childhood as a “complicated upbringing”, highlighting his relationship with his father, Thomas Fowler.

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“My father was a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi. I have never talked about these things publicly ever … I grew up in a very complicated family dynamic,” Spacey claimed, according to Variety.

Spacey added that he would never bring friends around to his home growing up, saying: “It was humiliating and terrifying to even consider bringing friends home to my house. I felt I had to keep to myself and keep private everything that happened in that house.”

The former House of Cards star claimed he was “forced to listen” to homophobic, anti-Semitic, racist slurs from his father, and added that when he told his father that he wanted to become an actor, his father yelled, “Don’t be an f-word.”

“I won’t say it here because it’s derogatory … I certainly had a degree of shame.”

Spacey’s testimony follows evidence given by Rapp, who described the alleged assault as “incredibly frightening and very alarming and totally antithetical to anything else that I had ever experienced”. 

“I was this 14-year-old child, and I had no desire to have any kind of this experience in my life,” Rapp explained. 

Rapp’s allegations have since prompted several more alleged victims to come forward against Spacey. Spacey has also been charged with four counts of sexual assault against men in the UK

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