American actor, James Franco has admitted to having sex with students from his acting school. This is coming almost four years after sexual misconduct allegations were made.
In July, Franco agreed to pay $2.2m (£1.6m) after being sued for engaging in “sexually-charged behaviour towards female students”.
However, the 43 year old is only now just talking about the allegations at length. Speaking on The Jess Cagle Podcast, he said that while teaching, he “did sleep with students, and that was wrong”. He further clarified that he had not started the school to lure women. He stated, “I suppose at the time, my thinking was if it’s consensual, OK.”
In 2019, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who attended Franco’s now-defunct Studio 4 acting school, filed the lawsuit against Franco. They alleged that he tried to “create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education”.
The lawsuit alleged he abused his position and dangled opportunities for roles in his films. His students claimed they were victims of fraud for paying for the acting school while being sexually objectified and intimidated.
In the beginning, Franco had responded to the allegations, stating that they were “not accurate”.
However, he made payments to Ms Tither-Kaplan and Ms Gaal, as well as other students who filed complaints.
In the interview, Franco further revealed that he had been in recovery from sex addiction since 2016.
