Four years after being accused of sexually inappropriate behavior, James Franco has spoken publicly for the first time about the allegations. Franco first rose to prominence on the cult teen series, Freaks and Geeks. He would then take on roles in the original Spider-Man trilogy, Milk, Eat Pray Love, Spring Breakers, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, among many other projects. For his performance in 127 Hours, Franco was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Sexual misconduct allegations against Franco go back as far as 2014, when a 17-year-old came forward claiming that the then-35-year-old actor had tried to pursue her. Franco confirmed her screen-shotted messages and apologized. In 2018, the LA Times published a report on five more women accusing Franco of sexual misconduct, four of whom were students at his acting school, Studio 4. Two of Franco’s former students filed a sexual misconduct lawsuit in 2019 accusing the actor of “sexualizing [his] power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in [his] projects.” This past June, Franco reached a deal with the plaintiffs, agreeing to pay $2,235,000 in the settlement.
Now, Franco has gone onto SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast (via People) to speak out about the accusations, the resulting fallout with frequent co-star Seth Rogen, and undergoing addiction treatment. Franco admitted to using his fame as “a lure,” sleeping with his students, and being “completely blind” to “power dynamics.” “Yes,” says Franco, “there were certain instances where I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn’t have been.” The actor also addresses why he waited so long to speak out, noting that “There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen.” Read below for more:
"In 2018, there were some complaints about me and an article about me and, at that moment I just thought 'I'm gonna be quiet. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna pause.' Did not seem like the right time to say anything. There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen.
I’ve just been doing a lot of work, and I guess I’m pretty confident in saying like, four years, you know? I was in recovery before for substance abuse. There were some issues that I had to deal with that were also related to addiction. And so I’ve really used my recovery background to kind of start examining this and changing who I was."
In May of 2021, Rogen publicly severed ties with Franco. The two actors have partnered together for a number of projects over the years, beginning with Freaks and Geeks in 1999. They collaborated on eight films, including Pineapple Express, This Is the End, Sausage Party, and The Disaster Artist. On his twenty-year working relationship with Rogen, Franco said, “He was my absolute closest work friend [and] collaborator…We aren’t working together right now and we don’t have any plans to work together.” Rogen’s rebuke of Franco “was hurtful in context,” adds the actor, “but I get it. He had to answer for me because I was silent. And so that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you today.”
Though Franco initially remained silent on his personal life and the allegations against him, he’s continued to work since 2018, albeit without the partnership of Rogen. He directed the films The Pretenders and Zeroville in 2018 and 2019, and executive produced and starred in HBO’s The Deuce. It’s unclear what Franco’s reentry into the public eye will mean for his career, but hopefully,would-be collaborators will take Rogen’s route and explicitly condemn abuse.
Source: The Jess Cagle Podcast via People