Netflix executives have discontinued production on the sixth and final season of House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey. In a series of tweets, the company stated that further discussions with the show’s producers Media Rights Capital are to follow.
The decision comes soon after Netflix announced that the sixth season of House of Cards would be its last. Spacey allegedly made sexual advances at actor Anthony Rapp when the latter was 14 in 1986. A day after Rapp revealed in a Buzzfeed interview that Spacey came on to him when he was a minor, the House of Cards actor made a public apology and also came out as being gay, a decision whose timing irked many.
Netflix spokesperson Karen Barragan said that the decision to end the series had been taken months before the allegation against Spacey became public.
Meanwhile, Beau Willimon, House of Cards creator and its showrunner for the first four seasons, released a statement on the ongoing controversy through his Twitter account, stating that the allegations made by Rapp are “deeply troubling”.
“During the time I worked with Kevin Spacey on House of Cards, I neither witnessed nor was aware of any inappropriate behaviour on set or off,” Willimon wrote.