Kevin Spacey's cunning Hollywood comeback plan as it's revealed surprising A-list star is behind shock Cannes award
Even more shocking was the decision to hand a lifetime achievement award for 'decades of artistic brilliance' to the 65-year-old actor who has been accused of inappropriate behaviour and molesting young men over three decades.
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Those highly publicised accounts included actor Anthony Rapp alleging he was aged only 14 when Spacey pressed his groin onto him and actor Richard Dreyfuss 's son Harry saying that Spacey preyed on him when he was just 18.
Even though double Oscar winner Spacey has successfully defended civil and criminal claims, new accusers have continued to come forward.
Yet at a glitzy dinner at the Carlton Hotel on the seafront in the South of France he was given the chance to rail against being 'blacklisted' and to boast 'I'm still standing'.
So who would give the actor best known for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty this platform?
The award ceremony, we can reveal, is connected to his old pal Sharon Stone.
The Basic Instinct actress copped a lot of flack last year for calling for 'genius' Spacey to be given another chance.
And she's backed the Better World Fund which handed out the gong on Tuesday night at the private event in Cannes.
The audience paid up to £5,000 for a seat to be at the event aimed at raising money for the 'philanthropic' organisation which uses "cinema and art at the service of humanity".
It seems to be part of the latest concerted attempt to bring the House of Cards star - who has just landed a part in a conspiracy action-thriller titled The Awakening, alongside English screen stars Alice Eve, Steven Berkoff and Julian Glover - in from the cold.
One man backing Spacey 's comeback is film producer Geoffrey Mark, who tells The Sun: 'He is a survivor. Of course what happened has hurt him.
Kevin Spacey hit with new lawsuit over debts months after he was booted from mansion & admitted he feared homelessness
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'Of course what's happened has harmed his career and his psyche. He wouldn't be human if it didn't.
'He won't be the lead in this film. He'll be the second lead, but he will steal the movie and he'll win another Oscar and then watch out.
'He deserves it. It's going to happen, folks.'
That sounds fanciful, given Spacey's pariah status in parts of the film industry.
The officials at the Cannes Film Festival made it perfectly clear that neither the award nor Spacey's first appearance there since 2016 had anything to do with them.
The organisers put out a statement saying: 'The Festival de Cannes had no involvement in, and was not informed of, either the invitation extended to Mr Spacey or the award presented during this private event.'
Many other people in the movie business want to keep their distance.
When Sharon Stone, Liam Neeson and Stephen Fry stated publicly last May that Spacey should be rehabilitated, it wasn't well received.
Afterwards Sharon admitted "people are mad at me' for standing up for him.
Since then other stars have come forward with their tales of how unpleasant it was to work with the notorious actor.
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Australian actor Guy Pearce claimed this year that he was 'targeted' by Spacey when they made the 1997 classic LA Confidential together.
Pearce, 57, said: 'I was scared of Kevin, he's quite aggressive, extremely charming. I was young and susceptible.'
Spacey denied the claims in a video, blasting back: 'Here you are now on a mission, some 28 years later, after I've been through hell and back."
Last month Scottish actor David Hayman, 77, remembered having a word with Spacey about his behaviour while shooting the 2000 movie Ordinary Decent Criminal in Dublin.
He claimed: 'Kevin Spacey is not a nice human being. He was being terrible to everyone.'
David alleged that he told the American star 'You are ruining everyone's lives, you are not being supportive and you are reducing people to tears, you are chasing young men around Dublin, you're not being professional.'
Last year Scottish actor Ruari Cannon, 33, claimed he was pursued by Spacey while working at the Old Vic Theatre in south London.
He alleged in a Channel 4 documentary titled Spacey Unmasked that Spacey, who was at that time artistic director of the famous theatre, touched Ruari intimately without his consent in 2013 when he was aged 21.
Ruari has brought a civil case against the Hollywood actor at London's High Court, which is yet to be resolved.
In Spacey Unmasked in May 2024, ten men made accusations of sexually inappropriate behaviour.
The included claims that he'd pleasured himself in front of a wannabe actor in a cinema and pushed his groin into the face of an Old Vic employee.
The star denied doing anything 'illegal', and was found not guilty on all charges, but did admit to 'clumsy' approaches.
With accusations still swirling around it is hard to imagine a major studio hiring Spacey.
The streaming giant Netflix is yet to release the actor's portrayal of the American intellectual Gore Vidal eight years after the film titled Gore was made.
The star was so toxic that British director Sir Ridley Scott reshot all the shamed actor's scenes in 2017's All the Money in the World, replacing him with Christopher Plummer at huge expense.
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In the same year Netflix axed its political satire House of Cards, feeling it couldn't continue with its lead actor in so much hot water.
Since then he's played an assassin in a poorly received film called Peter Five Eight and will next appear in The Awakening, which is seeking buyers at Cannes.
The other forthcoming project is a historical drama called 1780 which is set during America's war of independence from Britain.
But these are all small scale projects.
Geoffrey insists that Spacey is working his way back into favour, saying: 'He is not done. He's just thinking it over and when he figures it out, get out of his way.'
Other celebrity backers include Sir Elton John who partied with Spacey in Nice, France, after the actor was found not guilty of nine sexual offence charges in July 2023.
The singer was a witness for the defence at the trial at Southwark Crown Court where four men claimed Spacey had forced himself upon them.
A jury in a civil case in 2022 also found that Rapp had not proven his allegations.
Spacey and his supporters argue that these legal successes prove his innocence.
During his speech at Cannes, the actor complained: 'Who would have ever thought that honouring someone who has been exonerated in every single courtroom he's ever walked into would be thought of as a brave idea?'
'Too handsy'
The truth, though, is that Spacey has admitted mistreating other men.
After Anthony Rapp made his claims in 2017 Spacey's publicist said that the actor was seeking 'evaluation and treatment.'
In a 2024 interview with Piers Morgan, the actor confessed to 'bad behaviour' and being 'too handsy'.
The House of Cards producers sacked Spacey on the grounds that he was ill with 'compulsive sexual behaviour disorder'.
They successfully sued him for £22million, due to the revenue they lost by having to cancel the show.
Those huge costs almost bankrupted Spacey and he had to sell his home in Baltimore to pay his legal bills.
But Spacey says that following his treatment he is a 'better person.'
Geoffrey thinks that Spacey deserves another chance.
He concludes: 'Let's give this wonderful man a break. Last time he was in a film, he was a sexy, handsome, leading man.
'Well, he's no longer young. It happens to all of us in show business. We have to adjust to our ages and play different kinds of roles.
'I think he's figuring out what would be good. And when he does, we're going to see him right at the top again."
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Dinner is in the greenhouse-like restaurant, or overlooking the olives. You can do painting classes, wine tastings, cooking classes. We taste the estate's olive oil with farm manager Clemente Pellegrini Strozzi — a descendant of another Renaissance dynasty, and a man so passionate about olive oil ('It's like making a painting') that he talks to his trees. The more I learn about the Ghirlandaio family, the more I covet their art. Dimora offers a Ghirlandaio tour of Florence — Domenico's frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, Ognissanti and Santa Trinita — but I want to see the family's works in the landscape in which they lived. Each villa has a book about the history of Colle Ramole, which also lists the locations of every nearby work. That was my Sunday settled. At the Abbazia dei Santi Salvatore e Lorenzo in Badia a Settimo, just over nine miles away, Domenico's Annunciation — two roundels over the main arch — powers me through Mass ( In the sacristy afterwards, a priest silently flicks the lights onto a Nativity and Deposition — the grass beneath the cross is as fluffy as Dimora's lawn. In San Donnino, once an Arno-side village, now a suburb of Florence, is the church of San Andrea and two frescoes: Domenico's delicate Madonna and Child with two deliciously camp saints, and the Baptism of Christ, thought to be by his brother, David, as it's not quite as good (sorry David). The churchwarden, Lorenza, ushers me into an adjoining wing. It's the Museo d'Arte Sacra di San Donnino, a collection of Renaissance art that tells the story of the flood-prone village — most of these paintings were irreparably damaged in 1966. A St Roch by the Ghirlandaios looks desultory, his robes melted clean away by floodwater. 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Strozzi had asked when we'd popped in post-oil tasting). He's inscrutable: longish hair bobbed, Tuscan nose, eyes boring into my soul, while Domenico stares from above, lip imperceptibly curled. This is our house, they seem to whisper. And it always will be, I want to reply — but I'm delighted that Cecchi has brought you back to life. This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue Julia Buckley was a guest of Dimora Ghirlandaio, which has B&B doubles from £520 or villas from £781 ( The chapel can be viewed on request. Fly to Florence
