CNN
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Kevin Spacey has praised an Italian museum for having “the heart” to acknowledge him with a prestigious award, regardless of controversy over the intercourse crime allegations he’s confronted.
The Oscar-winning actor was invited to talk on the prize-giving ceremony on the Nationwide Museum of Cinema in Turin on Monday.
He was awarded the prize in recognition of his “private aesthetic and authorial contribution to the event of the artwork of drama.”
It got here simply days after the actor appeared by way of videolink at Southwark Crown Court docket in London, pleading not responsible to a number of expenses of sexual misconduct towards one man about 20 years in the past.
The fees had been joined to an earlier five-count indictment associated to alleged intercourse offenses towards three males between 2005 and 2013, for which Spacey beforehand professed his innocence.
Spacey, 63, received Oscars for performances in “American Magnificence” and “The Normal Suspects,” however his profession largely ended a couple of years in the past after greater than 20 males accused him of sexual misconduct.
“I’m absolutely blessed and grateful and humbled and my coronary heart may be very full tonight towards the Museum of Cinema for having had le palle (the heart) to ask me tonight,” stated Spacey who collected the prize in individual.
Tweeting concerning the occasion on Monday evening, the museum described Spacey as “one in every of Hollywood’s finest identified faces” and praised his “extraordinary performances as an actor.”
Within the run-up to the award ceremony, the Turin-based La Stampa newspaper ran an editorial headlined “Italy, land of plenary indulgence.”
The museum has been contacted for remark.
The seven further expenses that Spacey confronted final week, which had been approved by Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service in November, relate to alleged offenses within the early 2000s.
The “Home of Playing cards” actor was granted unconditional bail forward of a pre-trial evaluation listening to in April. His trial, which is presently because of start in June, is predicted to final for 4 weeks.
In October, Spacey defeated a separate sexual abuse declare within the US introduced towards him by actor Anthony Rapp. Spacey was discovered not accountable for battery within the civil trial.