Kevin Spacey said on Monday that he was hospitalized while in Uzbekistan for the Tashkent International Film Festival.
The former “House of Cards” star ― who was previously accused of child sexual abuse and faced a dozen sexual assault charges before being ultimately acquitted ― made the comments during a speech at the festival.
“I experienced something here today that was unexpected ... I was looking at these extraordinary murals on the walls, and I suddenly felt my entire left arm go numb for about eight seconds,” Spacey, 64, said in the speech, which was posted in part on the festival’s Instagram page.
Spacey said he was at the Afrasiyab Museum in Samarkand when the symptoms emerged.
“I shook it off, but I immediately told the people I was with, and we went immediately to the … medical center,” he continued, per The Sun. “I spent the afternoon there having a variety of tests. Staff took care of me, and even put me through an MRI.”
Spacey added that he spent the night before at a bar in Tashkent and didn’t get much sleep because he had been drinking beer with a number of filmmakers. He concluded his story by saying the diagnosis was “completely normal.”
“I am, of course, grateful that it’s not anything more serious,” he told the crowd, per The Sun. “But it also made me really take a moment and think to myself how fragile life is for all of us, and how important it is that we come together, that we support each other.”
The Oscar winner’s fall from grace began in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that Spacey “was trying to seduce” him in 1986. Rapp said he was 14 when then-26-year-old Spacey invited him to his New York City apartment and climbed on top of him.
Afterward, Spacey came out as gay and denied any wrongdoing. He was fired from the Netflix series.
“I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago,” Spacey wrote at the time on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology.”
Rapp sued Spacey in 2020 for sexual assault, sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A jury acquitted Spacey of the charges in 2022.
He was charged the same year for allegedly sexually assaulting four men in the U.K. The “American Beauty” star was acquitted in July.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.