‘That was wrong’: James Franco admits to having sex with his students

American actor James Franco admits to having sex with his students two years after he was accused of sexual exploitation in a rare interview with SiriusXM’s Jess Cagle on Wednesday 22 December. 

JAMES FRANCO ADMITS TO HAVING SEX WITH HIS STUDENTS

James Franco admitted to having sex with students in a rare interview with SiriusXM’s Jess Cagle on Wednesday 22 December. He explains that he thought sleeping with students was acceptable because he claims it was consensual. 

“Look, 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,” he said. 

The actor admitted that it was wrong but he denied starting a program to have access to them.

“It’s not why I started the school and I didn’t. I wasn’t the person that selected the people to be in the class. So, 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,” he continued.

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JAMES FRANCO: ‘IT’S PROBABLY NOT A COOL THING’

James revealed that although he thought it was okay because it was “consensual” he realised it was an issue when talking to other teachers.

“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 clear headed, 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,” he continued. 

Two ex-students Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal filed a lawsuit against James in the Los Angeles County Superior Court in October 2019. The ex-students claimed that James and other instructors pressured women to get naked for auditions. The instructors reportedly dangled opportunities for movie roles that never materialised.

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