FRANCO FRENZY: James Franco admits he slept with students!

Written by Gracie Ward.

 

Introduction:

Actor, James Franco admits he slept with his former students, revealing the truth within the 2018 allegations. Franco, 43,  is best known for his roles in ‘Pineapple Express’ and ‘127 hours’ for  which he received an Oscar nomination.

Previous Allegations.

In 2018,  Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles  accusing him of ‘sexual exploitation’. The women attended Studio 4 acting school, where Franco taught for three years.  The lawsuit claimed Franco abused his position and dangled opportunities for roles in his films. The women  also stated he tried to ‘create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education.’

Victims have claimed they were ‘a  victim of fraud for paying for the acting school while being sexually objectified and intimidated.’ Los Angeles Times also wrote an article on the allegations in 2018 in which five women accused him of conduct they considered inappropriate. Until now, Franco had not commented on these allegations and stated they were ‘not accurate’ however, he did not want to ‘shut down’ people who ‘did not have a voice.’

The Recent Events.

Franco recently starred on a ‘Sirius XM’ podcast hosted by Jess Cagle. The podcast touched on the allegations and presented his point of view. The actor taught a masterclass which was rumored to involve students to act out sex scenes. However, he quickly debunked that idea and explained how it was everyday romantic scenarios that students experience themselves.

He revealed how he did not start the school to lure women for sexual purposes and stated how he ‘didn’t sleep with anyone in that particular class but over the course of teaching I did sleep with students.’ He admitted, “it wasn’t a master plan on my part” and spoke on the fact he was ‘in a consensual thing with a student.

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The interviewer, Jess Cagle, questioned Franco on the potential ‘power imbalance’ that may of occurred to which he responded by saying “I suppose at the time my thinking was if it’s consensual – ok (…) of course I knew… yeah it’s probably not a cool thing.” $2.2m (£1.6m) was paid in July in order to escape the allegations, as he explained he was not ‘clear-headed’ and that ‘there were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen.’ He explained how he had been in sex addiction recovery since 2016 and ‘didn’t want to hurt anyone.’ Franco explained, “I was in recovery for substance abuse. There are 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 and changing who I was.”

The Public’s Response. 

The majority of the public expressed their opinion in the comment section of the video on YouTube. Some individuals were defending his thought process whereas others seemed to think the actor was in the wrong. One user commented: ‘Franco overstepped the power boundary’s but kept it consensual so I  hope if he continues to better himself , learn and overcome who he was we can see him back on the big screen…’ However some seemed to have a different opinion. Another user hit back commenting: ‘It’s not wrong to sleep with students. Maybe frowned upon in a formal point of view, but in logic there is nothing wrong’. Following the same direction another individual stated: ‘He was aware of the power imbalance. His own insecurities and issues he described earlier made him not care and put his own feelings first. It’s  embarrassing to admit selfishness and narcissism even if it was a byproduct of addiction.’

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