{"id":44661,"date":"2021-12-23T23:41:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-23T12:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=207560"},"modified":"2021-12-24T09:42:45","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T09:42:45","slug":"james-franco-addresses-sexual-misconduct-allegations","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/james-franco-addresses-sexual-misconduct-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"James Franco Has Broken His Silence 4 Years After Sexual Misconduct Allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DEAUVILLE, FRANCE – SEPTEMBER 05: James Franco attends the “In Dubious Battle” Premiere during the 42nd Deauville American Film Festival on September 5, 2016 in Deauville, France. (Photo by Francois G. Durand\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his first interview in four years, since five women, including four of his former pupils, came forward in January 2018 with allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour, James Franco has admitted to having sex with his acting students, being in recovery for sex addiction, and being \u201ccompletely blind to power dynamics.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In an interview with <\/span>SiriusXM<\/span><\/i><\/a>,<\/span><\/i> Franco revealed he had developed a destructive dependency on \u201cvalidation\u201d after getting clean for alcohol addiction. This came in the form of needing professional success and sexual approval from women and resulted in him cheating on every partner he\u2019s ever had, bar his current girlfriend. \u201cIt\u2019s such a powerful drug, and I got hooked on it for 20 more years,\u201d he said, while adding that since 2016, he has been in recovery for sex addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time of the allegations made against him during the Me Too movement, Franco said they were \u201cnot accurate\u201d but that he did not want to \u201cshut down\u201d people who \u201cdid not have a voice\u201d. Two of his accusers, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, both of whom Franco taught at the Playhouse West Studio 4 school he co-founded in 2014, went on to launch legal action in 2019, alleging Franco ran a “Sex Scenes” master class at the now-defunct acting school and that “student-actors were encouraged to perform and improvise sexual acts during the audition process.” The suit said Franco did not attend the tryouts but rather had them taped, after which he “hand-picked” his students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019ll admit, I did sleep with students,\u201d Franco said on the podcast, per People<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t sleep with anybody in that particular class, but over the course of my teaching I did sleep with students, and that was wrong.\u201d He continued, \u201cBut like I said, it\u2019s not why I started the school and I wasn\u2019t the person that selected the people to be in the class. So it wasn\u2019t a \u2018master plan\u2019 on my part. But yes, there were certain instances where, you know what, I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn\u2019t have been.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 12: James Franco is seen on September 12, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by BG002\/Bauer-Griffin\/GC Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In June, it was reported that Franco had agreed to pay $2.23m <\/span>to settle the suit<\/span><\/a>, which alleged that he and his business partners had \u201cengaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behaviour towards female students by sexualising their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pressed on whether he had been aware of the power imbalance between him and his pupils, Franco said he was \u201cnot clear-headed\u201d during that period, adding: \u201cI suppose at the time my thinking was \u2018if it\u2019s consensual, OK\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Referring to his long silence on the allegations, Franco said it \u201cdid not seem like the right time to say anything\u201d when they first emerged, adding: \u201cThere were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019ve just been doing a lot of work,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd I guess I\u2019m 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\u2019ve really used my recovery background to kind of start examining this and changing who I was.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Franco said not only was he \u201ccompletely blind to power dynamics\u201d but he was also \u201ccompletely blind to people\u2019s feelings,\u201d saying that while he \u201cdidn\u2019t want to hurt people\u201d, the behaviour \u201cspun out to the point where it was like I was hurting everybody.\u201d Franco added he’d cheated on every partner, bar his current girlfriend\u00a0Isabel Pakzad\u00a0and he could “never be faithful to anybody.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 05: Isabel Pakzad and James Franco attend a special screening of the final season of “The Deuce” at Metrograph on September 05, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill\/WireImage)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The interview came after Franco\u2019s long-term collaborator and friend Seth Rogen publicly distanced himself from him earlier this year in an interview, saying he had no plans to work with Franco, who starred alongside him in <\/span>Pineapple Express, This is the End<\/span><\/i>, and<\/span> The Disaster Artist<\/span><\/i>, again. On the topic of Rogan, Franco said, \u201cI just want to say, I absolutely love Seth Rogen .. He was my absolute closest work friend, collaborator. We just gelled.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He added: \u201cOf course, it was hurtful in context, but I get it, you know, he had to answer for me because I was silent. He had to answer for me and I don\u2019t want that. And so that\u2019s why, you know, it\u2019s one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you today is I just, I don\u2019t want Seth or my brother [Dave Franco] or anyone to have to answer for me anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9593,"featured_media":44662,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[23,16],"yoast_head":"\nJames Franco Has Broken His Silence 4 Years After Sexual Misconduct Allegations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In his first interview in four years, since five women, including four of his former pupils, came forward in January 2018 with allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour, James Franco has admitted to having sex with his acting students, being in recovery for sex addiction, and being \u201ccompletely blind to power dynamics.\u201d\u00a0 In an interview with SiriusXM, Franco revealed he had developed a destructive dependency on \u201cvalidation\u201d after getting clean for alcohol addiction. This came in the form of needing professional success and sexual approval from women and resulted in him cheating on every partner he\u2019s ever had, bar his current girlfriend. \u201cIt\u2019s such a powerful drug, and I got hooked on it for 20 more years,\u201d he said, while adding that since 2016, he has been in recovery for sex addiction.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/james-franco-addresses-sexual-misconduct-allegations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James Franco Has Broken His Silence 4 Years After Sexual Misconduct Allegations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his first interview in four years, since five women, including four of his former pupils, came forward in January 2018 with allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour, James Franco has admitted to having sex with his acting students, being in recovery for sex addiction, and being \u201ccompletely blind to power dynamics.\u201d\u00a0 In an interview with SiriusXM, Franco revealed he had developed a destructive dependency on \u201cvalidation\u201d after getting clean for alcohol addiction. This came in the form of needing professional success and sexual approval from women and resulted in him cheating on every partner he\u2019s ever had, bar his current girlfriend. \u201cIt\u2019s such a powerful drug, and I got hooked on it for 20 more years,\u201d he said, while adding that since 2016, he has been in recovery for sex addiction.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/james-franco-addresses-sexual-misconduct-allegations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Grazia USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-12-24T09:42:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-599523510-1.jpg?fit=1280%2C743\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"743\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/james-franco-addresses-sexual-misconduct-allegations\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/james-franco-addresses-sexual-misconduct-allegations\/\",\"name\":\"James Franco Has Broken His Silence 4 Years After Sexual Misconduct Allegations\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-12-23T12:41:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-24T09:42:45+00:00\",\"description\":\"In his first interview in four years, since five women, including four of his former pupils, came forward in January 2018 with allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour, James Franco has admitted to having sex with his acting students, being in recovery for sex addiction, and being \u201ccompletely blind to power dynamics.\u201d\u00a0 In an interview with SiriusXM, Franco revealed he had developed a destructive dependency on \u201cvalidation\u201d after getting clean for alcohol addiction. 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