Kevin Spacey has triggered fresh backlash online after saying his career appears to be recovering and likening the scandal that upended his life to a “small kitchen fire,” despite the many sexual misconduct allegations that stalled his time in Hollywood.
Speaking on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast on Monday, June 29, the 66-year-old reflected on being largely shut out of major studio work for nearly a decade, even as he has continued to surface in smaller international and independent projects.
After his career collapsed in 2017 during the height of the #MeToo era, Spacey said he now believes attitudes toward him are beginning to soften, both publicly and within parts of the entertainment industry.
“I feel less in jail than I did,” Spacey told Maher during the candid interview. “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.’ I believe we’re at a point now where people are beginning to look at what actually happened, and I feel much more welcomed.”
Maher challenged him on the number of allegations that have surfaced over the years, prompting Spacey to defend himself with an analogy that quickly drew attention.
“I never said there was no fire,” Spacey responded, maintaining his stance that his actions were overblown by the media. “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 acknowledged aspects of his past conduct in blunt terms.
“I hit on a lot of guys.”
Spacey went on to argue that entertainment punishes controversy differently from other public-facing fields.
He said a sports star in a comparable situation would likely have received a temporary suspension rather than years of professional exile.
“If I had been a sports figure, I would have been benched for seven games,” the House of Cards alum argued. “If you’re hitting home runs, they want you on the field.”
To support his claim that a return is underway, Spacey pointed repeatedly to the outcomes of the legal cases brought against him, as well as the fact that he has slowly begun taking on work again outside the Hollywood studio system.
“We’ve been found not guilty in every court we’ve gone into with a jury,” Spacey pointed out.
The legal fallout began after actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making an unwanted sexual advance toward him in 1986, when Rapp was 14 years old.
Rapp later filed a $40 million civil suit in New York, but in 2022 a federal jury found Spacey not liable on any count.
In the UK, Spacey was also cleared in July 2023 after a criminal court acquitted him of nine sexual assault charges. In March 2026, he reached out-of-court settlements with three men who had brought civil sexual assault claims against him in London, bringing that separate case to an end before trial.
Recent reporting has also linked Spacey to a small but noticeable stream of work outside Hollywood, including European productions and live appearances, suggesting that while his old studio career has not returned, he has not disappeared from the industry entirely.
Elsewhere in the podcast conversation, Spacey said he regrets how he first responded publicly when Rapp’s allegation emerged in 2017.
At the time, he released a statement that apologized for any inappropriate behavior while also revealing he is gay, a move that prompted strong criticism.
Many people, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, accused him of attempting to redirect attention from the allegation by tying it to his coming out.
Spacey told Maher that years of secrecy about his personal life affected his judgment in that moment.
“I was fiercely closeted,” Spacey reflected on the podcast. “I thought I was so clever that nobody knew, but, of course, kind of everybody knew. It was a terrible mistake to combine the two things.”