Personal Life
In September 2006, Spacey said that he intends to take up British citizenship when it becomes available to him.
Spacey is a Democrat and a friend of former US President Bill Clinton, having met Clinton before his presidency began. Spacey has described Clinton as "one of the shining lights" of the political process. According to Federal Election Commission data, Spacey has contributed US$42,000 to Democratic candidates and committees. He additionally made a cameo appearance in President Clinton: Final Days, a light-hearted political satire produced by the Clinton administration for the White House Correspondents Dinner.
In September 2007, Spacey met Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Neither spoke to the press about their encounter but hours later the actor visited the government-funded movie studio, Villa del Cine (Cinema City). In December of that year he co-hosted the Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Uma Thurman.
A Sunday Times article stated that Spacey's "love affair with acting, and the absence of a visible partner in the life of an attractive 40-year-old, has resulted in misunderstanding and Esquire magazine's bet-hedging assertion two years ago that he must be gay." He responded to such rumours by telling Playboy and other interviewers that he was not gay, and telling Lesley White of the Sunday Times, "I chose for a long time not to answer these questions because of the manner in which they were asked, and because I was never talking to someone I trusted, so why should I? Recently I chose to participate because it's a little hard on the people I love." Spacey said to Gotham Magazine, "I’ve just never believed in pimping my personal life out for publicity. I’m not interested in doing it. Never will do it. They can gossip all they want; they can speculate all they want." He added, "I just happen to believe that there’s a public life and there’s a private life. Everybody has a right to a private life no matter what their profession is".
In 1999, he took his girlfriend of several years to the Academy Awards, and thanked her during the acceptance speech for his Best Actor award. Reports in 1999 and 2000 suggested she was a script supervisor, Dianne Dreyer.
In March 2011, following Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko's crackdown on the Belarusian democracy movement, Spacey, along with Jude Law and others, joined street protests against Lukashenko. Spacey stated: "...they will never be able to ban the Belarus people's right to fight for their freedom and their voices to be heard, and that's what this protest is about."
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