This Is Us removes Kevin Spacey reference from Tuesday's episode

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This Is Us has removed a line from Tuesday’s episode that contained a mention of Kevin Spacey.

In a 2008 flashback scene that airs tonight in the NBC family drama, Kevin (Justin Hartley) is struggling to make ends meet, and his roommate returns home, elated that he’s just landed a role on a Kevin Spacey movie. The roommate then invites Kevin (Pearson) to come with him to the director’s party for the cast. That Spacey reference was coincidental, as the scene was filmed nearly two months ago.

“In light of recent events, the producers have decided to remove the brief reference to Kevin Spacey,” the studio that produces This Is Us, 20th Century Fox Television, said in a statement on Tuesday. [UPDATE: The scene aired on some Canadian TV channels with Spacey’s name. The studio had no comment.]

In an interview published by BuzzFeed on Sunday, actor Anthony Rapp accused the House of Cards star of making sexual advances toward him at a party in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. The Star Trek: Discovery actor, now 46, claimed Spacey harassed him and allegedly picked him “up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold” and then laid “down on top of me.” Spacey responded that he was “beyond horrified” to hear Rapp’s story but claimed he did not remember their encounter. “But if I did behave as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years,” Spacey added in his statement, before coming out as gay. Netflix first responded by announcing on Monday that this upcoming season of House of Cards would be its last, and on Tuesday, the streamer decided to indefinitely suspend production on the show.

This Is Us has been accidentally ahead of the headlines before. In the season premiere, Kevin consoled Sophie (Alexandra Breckenridge) after she missed seeing some Kardashians by saying, “They’re like Gremlins. I promise by next week there will be a bazillion more of them.” Earlier that day, news broke of Khloé Kardashian’s pregnancy, which was coupled with the recent news that Kylie Jenner was also expecting and Kim Kardashian West was expecting a third child via surrogate. That scene had been shot months before airing as well.

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on NBC.