Kevin Spacey said to a court here on Monday that he struggled to come out publicly as gay because of his father's racist, homophobic and anti-semitic views, reports Variety.
"My father was a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi," Spacey said of his father, Thomas Fowler. "I have never talked about these things publicly ever." He added, "I grew up in a very complicated family dynamic."
The admission, according to Variety, came on the witness stand in New York City, where Spacey is facing off against American actor and singer Anthony Rapp in a $40-million civil lawsuit.
Rapp claims Spacey made unwanted sexual advances against him in 1986 when Rapp was 14 years old. In his own testimony, Rapp has accused Spacey of being a fraud for not being openly gay.
"To call someone a fraud is to say someone is living a lie," Spacey said, according to Variety. "I wasn't living a lie. I was just reluctant to talk about my personal life."
Growing up, Spacey said his family moved around a lot because his father was frequently unemployed. He said he was "terrified" as a child and was "forced to listen" to his father's racist and bigoted lectures, which prevented him from bringing friends to the house.
He said when he told his father that he wanted to be an actor, he was told "don't be an f-word". (Spacey clarified that he did not want to say the word because it would be considered derogatory in a courtroom.)
Spacey was one of Hollywood's most acclaimed actors, winning Oscars for his work in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, and starring in the Netflix series House of Cards. But after Rapp accused him of sexual assault in a 2017 BuzzFeed article, and other accusers made similar allegations against Spacey, his career imploded, Variety adds.