James Franco admits to having sex with students

The American actor was accused by several former students of his theater school of abusing and sexually harassing them. He also revealed that he has been in recovery since 2016 from his sex addiction.

For the first time in years, American actor James Franco spoke at length about the sexual assault and harassment allegations that were leveled against him. In an interview for SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle podcast, the performer made his sex addiction known and admitted he slept with students from his old drama school.

Franco, who has been in recovery since 2016, explained why he remained silent for so long despite harsh complaints against him from five women, four of whom were his acting students, in an article published by The Los Angeles Times in January 2018. That same month, one of the alleged victims, Sarah Tither-Kaplan, denounced that the actor " abused his power by exploiting the non-famous women he worked with under the pretext of giving them opportunities."

At the time, the actor responded to the accusations of his former students by claiming that they were " starved for attention. " Franco opened his theater school, Studio 4, in Los Angeles in 2014 and closed its doors in 2017 following complaints against him.

But now the actor accepted his past mistakes. He admitted that he thought having sex with students from his acting school was acceptable because it was an "agreed" act between adults, but he denied exploiting them sexually.

“ I admit I slept with students and that was wrong. It should never have happened, ”he said. " I guess at the time, my thinking was if it was consensual, that's fine ."

"I didn't want to hurt anyone," Franco, 43, said in the interview. “In 2018, there were some complaints about me and at that point, I thought I had to keep quiet. I had to pause. It didn't seem like the right time to say anything. There were people who were upset with me and needed to listen, " he continued in his discharge.

During the interview, Franco also recounted that he has been in treatment for his sex addiction for the past five years. "It is such a powerful drug," he said. He also acknowledged that before his current relationship with Isabel Pakzad, "he could never be faithful to anyone."

Franco said he was "blind to people's feelings." "I have been working a lot. I was recovering from substance abuse. And there were some issues that I had to deal with that were also related to addiction. I have used my experience to change who I was, " added the actor, who in June of this year agreed to pay $ 2.2 million to two of his complainants.

Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who filed the first lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court in October 2019, joined by many more, claimed that at their defunct school, Studio 4, Franco and other instructors were compelling the students to perform increasingly explicit sexual scenes on camera in an “orgy-like set” that went far beyond what was acceptable on Hollywood film sets.

The controversy surrounding James Franco began at the 2018 Golden Globes when the actor won the award for best actor in a comedy for the film "The Disaster Artist" (2017) and on whose red carpet he paraded with a pin from the Time's Up.

During the ceremony, several actresses charged on social networks against the alleged hypocrisy of the actor for wearing one of those badges, since they assured that he was responsible for episodes of abuse and sexual harassment in the past.