We investigate the asymptotic structure of (possibly type III) crossed product von Neumann algebras arising from arbitrary actions of bi-exact discrete groups (e.g. free groups) on amenable von Neumann algebras. We particularly prove a spectral gap rigidity result for the crossed products and, using recent results of Boutonnet-Ioana-Salehi Golsefidy, we provide the first example of group measure space type III factors with no central sequences. This is joint work with C. Houdayer.