Other than the odd, low-key sighting, Kevin Spacey has largely kept out of the public eye of late.

Facing numerous allegations of sexual assault will do that, but now Spacey has decided to return with a poetry reading that makes it clear that he’s the real victim in all of this.

Over the weekend, he appeared in front of the Greek statue ‘Boxer at Rest’ in Rome, and read Gabriele Tinti’s poem, The Boxer.

That’s Tinti above, with Spacey.

In case your poetry skills aren’t up to speed, The Boxer is about “an exhausted fighter used for entertainment, then left bleeding by the ringside”.

Ah, I see what he did there.

More from the Telegraph:

The poem contains the lines:  “They used me for their entertainment, fed on shoddy stuff. Life was over in a moment” and “The more you’re wounded the greater you are. And the more empty you are. I have endured no end of sleepless nights. I have spent hours and hours sweating to destroy and fall”.

Standing beside the Greek bronze cast of the ravaged fighter, which dates from around 316 BC, Spacey, dressed in a tobacco-coloured suit, intoned the poem to a startled audience at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.

This was the first time Spacey has performed in public since sexual misconduct charges from 2017 were dropped by a Massachusetts prosecutor, after William Little declined to testify against him at a pre-trial hearing.

That’s just one of the people who came forward with accusations against Spacey, to be clear.

Spacey’s reading initially took place in front of around 50 museum-goers and selected guests. By the time he had finished, though, a bigger crowd had gathered outside, and he read the poem over again.

Here’s that second reading:

OK, then.

It’s a bit like Donald Trump saying that the Mueller Report offered ‘complete and total exoneration’, even when it clearly didn’t.

Spacey does remember all of the other charges, right?

[He] is still being investigated by officers from the Metropolitan Police over six allegations of sexual assault in the UK between 1996 and 2013.

The Hollywood star was voluntarily interviewed under caution by Met’s Complex Case Team in May and Scotland Yard said on Saturday that “inquiries are ongoing.”

Anthony Rapp, an actor, has also alleged he was 14 when Spacey, then 26, made a sexual advance to him in 1986.

Spacey, who was artistic director at London’s The Old Vic theatre between 2004 and 2015, said he did not remember the alleged encounter, but apologised for any “inappropriate drunken behaviour”.

The theatre later found 20 people claimed they had been subjected to inappropriate behaviour from the actor.

Sheesh, I wonder what stunt he’ll pull the next time an accuser drops a charge.

Perhaps he will rappel from the ceiling, Mission: Impossible style, and sing Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me.

One charge down, and countless others still to squash.

[source:telegraph]