American actor James Franco has reached a settlement deal in a 2019 lawsuit alleging that he intimidated his students into sexual situations at the acting school he founded.
According to a joint status report filed on February 11, two of Franco’s former students at his now-defunct Studio 4 school, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, have agreed to drop their individual claims. The court dismissed their sexual exploitation claims without prejudice; which leaves them open if the plaintiffs want to re-file.
Additionally, fraud allegations brought forward in the suit will be subject to limited release. It is not immediately clear how much money the settlement deal involved.
According to their class-action lawsuit, Franco had allegedly forced his students to perform explicit sex scenes on camera. They described these scenes as an “orgy-type setting” during a master class he held on sex scenes.
Also, Tither-Kaplan and Gaal alleged that Franco led students to believe that roles in his films would become available to them if they followed along.
Franco’s attorneys responded to the claims in a previous filing, calling them “false and inflammatory, legally baseless; and brought as a class action with the obvious goal of grabbing as much publicity as possible for attention-hungry Plaintiffs.”
Franco’s attorneys will submit the deal for preliminary court approval by March 15.
Tither-Kaplan first alleged claims of sexual misconduct against Franco in early 2018; after he won a Golden Globe for his role in The Disaster Artist. Since the allegations came to light, Franco has kept out of the spotlight; though he still has several film and television projects in the works.
You can access the agreement here.
