Kevin Spacey was fired from ‘House of Cards’ in 2017
Kevin Spacey returned to the courtroom on Tuesday with explosive testimony that has once again brought attention to his 2017 exit from Netflix’s House of Cards.
During his appearance in the Superior Court of California, the Oscar-winning actor claimed his firing was made on “false grounds,” directly challenging the production company Media Rights Capital (MRC).
The production company Media Rights Capital (MRC) has argued that Kevin Spacey could not return to House of Cards due to a sexual compulsive disorder diagnosis. MRC is currently suing its insurer, Fireman’s Fund, for $100 million in losses related to Spacey’s removal from the series.
However, Spacey challenged the company’s claims in court, arguing that he was let go because executives were embarrassed by the wave of misconduct allegations against him, rather than his medical condition.
MRC maintained that Spacey’s diagnosis made him unfit to reprise his role as Francis Underwood in season 6. Psychiatrist Michael Genovese testified that Spacey was “unable to fulfill his duties” in 2017. Spacey countered, claiming that his medical records contained “comments attributed to me that I never said.”
Spacey was fired in November 2017, shortly after actor Anthony Rapp accused him of making an unwanted sexual advance when Rapp was 14. Around the same time, Netflix also scrapped Spacey’s film Gore.
In 2020, a private arbitrator ruled that Spacey had breached his contract by violating MRC’s sexual harassment policy, ordering him to pay $31 million. That amount was later reduced to $1 million in exchange for medical records, which have become central to the ongoing insurer dispute.
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