Yahoo News Fact Check: Truth Behind Claim Kevin Spacey Said 'Young Girls' Were on Epstein Plane He Flew on with Clinton Foundation Members
Claim:
Actor Kevin Spacey once said "young girls" were on a plane belonging to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that Spacey flew on with Clinton Foundation members.
Rating:
On June 12, 2024, an X account claimed actor Kevin Spacey told journalist Piers Morgan "young girls" were on a flight he took with Clinton Foundation members on a plane belonging to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The X account posted a video with the caption: "BREAKING: Kevin Spacey explains that he and Clinton Foundation members flew on Jeffrey Epstein's planes with 'young girls'."
BREAKING: Kevin Spacey explains that he and Clinton Foundation members flew on Jeffrey Epstein's planes with “young girls.” pic.twitter.com/zM8m4F16NH
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) June 12, 2024
Other examples of the clip were published elsewhere on X on June 11 and June 12.
Together, the posts had amassed more than 10.5 million views at the time of this writing.
Similar claims appeared on Reddit, in multiple Facebook posts, on TikTok, and on video-sharing platform Rumble.
In July 2023, Spacey was found not guilty of all charges of sexual assault against four men between 2001 and 2013 following a trial in London, U.K. In October 2022, a U.S. court also dismissed a sexual assault lawsuit against the actor.
However, he is currently facing a civil trial over an allegation he sexually assaulted a man in 2008, which he denies.
BREAKING: Kevin Spacey explains that he and Clinton Foundation members flew on Jeffrey Epstein's planes with “young girls.”
by u/ALiddleBiddle in Epstein
On June 11, 2024, Spacey did appear in an interview with Morgan. He said say he flew with Clinton Foundation members on one of Epstein's planes that also had "young girls" on it, which is why we have rated this claim as "Correct Attribution."
Morgan's show, "Piers Morgan Uncensored," posted the same clip on X on June 11.
The full show was also posted on the Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube channel. The clip starts at around 1:11:38 and ends at around 1:13:44.
During the interview, Spacey said he learned a plane he used to fly to South Africa in for humanitarian work with the Clinton Foundation, the charity former U.S. President Bill Clinton established, belonged to Epstein:
In 2015, I started seeing reports online, things on my Twitter account, that I had flown to this guy Jeffrey Epstein's island and I had abused young girls. And I was like, I mean if you'd asked me in 2015, maybe if you'd even asked me in 2002, did I know a guy named Jeffrey Epstein, I probably would have said "no." Well, of course, I have since learned who he is and I have since been able to go back and find out that the airplane that we flew on for this humanitarian mission was owned by Jeffrey Epstein. And to then learn, "oh, he was actually on some of those flights, and this [Ghislaine] Maxwell woman was on some of those flights." I didn't know him. I've never spent any time with him. I was with the Clinton Foundation people, that's who I was with.
Spacey also said he had no relationship with Maxwell or Epstein and "never spent time" with the latter.
He then explained he never took anything, such as money, from Epstein, as he "didn't want to be around this guy," and that he never visited Epstein's island, where the late financier allegedly raped underage girls (Epstein later committed suicide in jail while awaiting sex-trafficking charges):
I felt he put the president [Bill Clinton] at risk on that trip to South Africa because there were these young girls; and we were like, "who's this guy?"... there were young girls on those flights, and that's been out. They've talked about it. But here's my point, there's a big difference between not remembering that I met some guy and some woman on a humanitarian trip where my focus was entirely on what we were there to do, and not remembering whether I went to somebody's island. So, I never went to Jeffrey Epstein's island. I did not know him.
Snopes has produced dozens of articles related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Sources:
'"Grateful" Kevin Spacey Cleared of Sex Assault Charges'. BBC News, 26 July 2023. www.bbc.co.uk, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66299485.
'Kevin Spacey Wins Ruling in UK Civil Trial over Sex Assault Claim'. BBC News, 7 May 2024. www.bbc.co.uk, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68969943.
'New York Court Dismisses Kevin Spacey Sexual Assault Lawsuit'. BBC News, 20 Oct. 2022. www.bbc.co.uk, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63338929.
Piers Morgan Uncensored. Kevin Spacey Breaks Down As He Faces Debt Of MILLIONS. 2024. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qktc4-9mXXc.
Schuman, Eric Levenson, Melanie. 'Jeffrey Epstein Allegedly Sexually Abused Girls in the US Virgin Islands through 2018'. CNN, 15 Jan. 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/15/us/jeffrey-epstein-virgin-islands-lawsuit/index.html.
'X.Com'. X (Formerly Twitter), https://x.com/PiersUncensored/status/1800610955535249742. Accessed 12 June 2024.
