Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
Amid the intensity of giving evidence, and last October eventually losing his $40 million civil lawsuit against Kevin Spacey, the Rent and Star Trek: Discovery star Anthony Rapp was concealing a happy secret. He and his husband Ken Ithiphol were expecting a baby, indeed entering the final stages of pregnancy with their surrogate.
Rai Larson Ithiphol’s imminent arrival (on December 2, 2022) “was a light shining at the end of all of it, and it helped allow me to be totally released from the attachment to the result of the trial,” Rapp told The Daily Beast. “We wanted to keep both things totally distinct and separate. We didn’t even tell our lawyers we were pregnant. But to have it going on at the same time was a source of joy for us in the middle of the ordeal.”
Rapp is presently performing Without You (New World Stages, booking to April 30, 2023), a gently haunting solo show (based on his 2006 memoir of the same name) in which he tells the story of the early days of starring in Rent, including the death of creator Jonathan Larson, set alongside the story of his mother’s declining health and death. There are snatches of familiar Rent songs, including, of course, “Seasons of Love”; the show—which Rapp first performed in 2008—has a moving earnestness and heartfelt honesty to it.