That's the upshot of an interview with the Oscar-winning actor in the new Playboy, wherein he sounds off (again) about a 1997 magazine profile that hinted at the so-called truth of his sexuality.
"I'm not married, and I won't talk about my private life, so it must mean I'm gay," Spacey says in Playboy.
While calling the offending story (Esquire's "Kevin Spacey Has a Secret") "infuriating" and "made-up," the L.A. Confidential star says he has used its insinuations to his advantage.
"There are a few women who think the article might be true. For them, it's a challenge," Spacey says. "They want to be the ones to turn me around."
"[And] I let them."
The Esquire article from September 1997 did not outright declare the bachelor Spacey gay. It merely said bicoastal "sophisticates," as well as his mother, had heard a rumor that he was.
"It wasn't that I cared that they inferred I was gay, because I believe that people in this country are more advanced than certain members of the media, who try to use their medium as a weapon. But I felt betrayed," Spacey says in the new interview.
Spacey picked up his Best-Supporting Actor Oscar for 1995's The Usual Suspects. He is the subject of Academy Award buzz again for his turn as a suburban male in the grips of a mid-life crisis in the upcoming American Beauty.
But that's speculation. These days, Spacey is concerned with setting the record straight--even on the subject of his surname. In Playboy, the actor says he's tired of talk that he "made [it] up" in high school.
"My name was always Spacey, Kevin Spacey Fowler," he says. "Spacey is my middle name."
No word on if the misconception also helps him make time with the ladies. The Playboy issue featuring Spacey's interview, among other things, hits newsstands next Tuesday.