Following sexual assault allegations made by actor Anthony Rapp and multiple employees of Netflix’s House of Cards, Netflix has announced it will be cutting all ties from Kevin Spacey, including firing the actor from House of Cards and canceling the release of the company’s upcoming film Gore, which Spacey starred in.
Us Weekly reports that in a statement on Friday, Netflix said it, “will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey. We will continue to work with MRC during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the show. We have also decided we will not be moving forward with the release of the film Gore, which was in post-production, starring and produced by Kevin Spacey.”
Netflix issued an ultimatum Friday night saying it will no longer be involved with HOC if the series includes Spacey https://t.co/UDPdbgQHvs
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) November 4, 2017
According to The Hollywood Reporter, production of House of Cards is unlikely to cease altogether — instead, the show’s writers are looking for a way to rework the sixth season and write Spacey out of it, possibly killing his character, Frank Underwood, off and allowing his wife Claire to take center stage in the show.
“They shut it down to figure out how to write him out,” a source told The Hollywood Reporter, after production on season six of House of Cards was previously suspended this week when Rapp first came forward with allegations that Spacey made sexual advances on him when he was only 14 years old.
Following Rapp’s allegations, eight employees on the show reported that Spacey made the work environment “toxic,” and a male production assistant alleged that Spacey sexually assaulted him early on in the show’s production.
As Netflix tries to determine the future of the show now that it has fired Spacey, the company has said it has, “nothing further to share at this time.”