Five women accuse James Franco of “sexually exploitative behaviour”
Franco's representative has disputed the allegations
By Joshua Haigh
James Franco has been acussed of “sexually exploitative and innapropriate behaviour” by five women.
Following Franco’s win at the Golden Globes, a number of users took to Twitter to accuse the star of hypocrisy for wearing a #TimesUp pin to the ceremony following an incident in 2014 where he apologised for hitting on a 17-year-old.
In light of the controversy on social media, five women have now come forward in an interview with LA Times with claims against the Hollywood actor.
Sarah Tither-Kaplan, a former acting student at the film school Franco founded, has claimed that in one incident Franco “removed protective plastic guards covering other actresses’ vaginas while simulating oral sex on them” during a sex scene.
“I feel there was an abuse of power, and there was a culture of exploiting non-celebrity women, and a culture of women being replaceable,” said Tither-Kaplan.
Two other student actresses also came forward and claimed that Franco became angry when no women women would agree to be topless during a ohotoshoot they were both attending.
Franco’s representative disuputed all of the women’s allegations when contacted by LA Times, and directed the publication to comments the Disaster Artist actor made on The Late Show on Tuesday evening (January 9th).
He was forced to speak out after actress Violet Paley took to Twitter to accuse the star of innapropriate behaviour, saying: “Cute #TIMESUP pin James Franco. Remember the time you pushed my head down in a car towards your exposed penis & that other time you told my friend to come to your hotel when she was 17? After you had already been caught doing that to a different 17 year old?”
In response, Franco said: “Look, in my life I pride myself on taking responsibility for things that I have done. I have to do that to maintain my well being.
“The things that I heard that were on Twitter are not accurate. But I completely support people coming out and being able to have a voice because they didn’t have a voice for so long. So I don’t want to shut them down in any way.”
“If I have done something wrong. I will fix it — I have to,” he added.