"I did sleep with students and that was wrong," admits James Franco in the wake of a large settlement his former acting school paid to several ex-students. Photo / Getty Images
"I did sleep with students and that was wrong," admits James Franco in the wake of a large settlement his former acting school paid to several ex-students. Photo / Getty Images
James Franco has admitted, for the first time, that it was "wrong" to sleep with his students. In addition Franco has opened up about his battle with sex addiction, which he thinks contributed to his questionable acts.
The 43-year-old actor confesses: "I'll admit I did sleep with students. I didn't sleep with anybody in [my 'Sex Scenes' class], but, over the course of my teaching, I did sleep with students and that was wrong.
"I did sleep with students and that was wrong," admits James Franco in the wake of a large settlement his former acting school paid to several ex-students. Photo / Getty Images
"It wasn't a master plan on my part. But yes, there were certain instances where, you know what I was in a consensual thing with, with a student and I shouldn't have been."
Franco realised it was a mistake to sleep with his students after talking to other people about the situation.
The actor told SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Podcast: "I suppose at the time, my thinking was if it's consensual, okay. Of course I knew, you know, talking to other people, other teachers or whatever, like, yeah, it's probably not a cool thing.
"At the time I was not clearheaded, as I've said. So I guess my, I guess it just comes down to my criteria was like, if this is consensual, like, I think it's cool. We're all adults, so …"
Franco also revealed that he's been in recovery for sex addiction since 2016.
The actor confessed that he cheated on "everyone" before meeting his current girlfriend, Izabel Pakzad.
Due to his sex addiction James Franco confessed that he cheated on "everyone" before meeting his current girlfriend, Izabel Pakzad (left). Photo / Getty Images
He shared: "I was in recovery before, for substance abuse. And there were 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 this and changing who I was.
"[Sex is] such a powerful drug. And I got hooked on it for 20 more years.
"And the insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time. So, and I went to meetings all that time. I even tried to sponsor other people. And so in my head, it was like, 'Oh, I'm sober. I'm living a spiritual life.' Where on the side, I'm acting out now in all these other ways. And I couldn't see it."
Ex-students of Franco, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, filed a lawsuit in October 2019 that was joined by many others, alleging that Franco pushed his students into performing in increasingly explicit sex scenes on camera in an "orgy-type setting".
Franco and his fellow co-defendants from the Studio 4 acting school agreed to pay a $2.2 million settlement to the accusers in February, releasing a statement saying: "While defendants continue to deny the allegations in the complaint, they acknowledge that plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the mistreatment of women in Hollywood."
