Five women, including former students, denouncing inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment by actor James Franco.
The American actor James Franco was under new charges on Thursday, five women, including former students, denouncing inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment in the pages of the Los Angeles Times.
The 39-year-old actor and his lawyer denied all these accusations.
Among the accusers, four former students of the school of actors mounted by James Franco claim to have been uncomfortable with his behavior, especially during nude scenes. The fifth, Violet Paley, now 23 years old, denounces having felt forced to perform a blowjob on the actor when they were engaged in a relationship.
It was the appearance of James Franco at the Golden Globes on Sunday, sporting a lapel pin supporting the Time’s Up organization to defend victims of sexual assault at work, which seems to have triggered this salvo of accusations. He received the award for best actor in a comedy for The Disaster Artist and is tipped for the Oscars.
“I took it as a slap in the face,” Sarah Tither-Kaplan, a former student of James Franco’s film school Studio 4, told LA Times . She had reacted on Twitter as of Sunday night, feeling “exploited” by shooting her nude scenes paid $ 100 a day.
Hey James Franco, nice #timesup pin at the #GoldenGlobes , remember a few weeks ago when you told me the full nudity you had me do in two of your movies for $100/day wasn’t exploitative because I signed a contract to do it? Times up on that!
— Sarah Tither-Kaplan? (@sarahtk) January 8, 2018
She recounts, among other things, how she and a number of other women participated in a nude scene when James Franco removed protective plastic films covering the private parts of the actresses while performing simulated scenes of oral sex.
Two other former students, Hilary Dusome and Natalie Chmiel, explain how James Franco would have asked them, and other actresses, to remove their highs during a shooting at a strip club . In front of their refusal, he would have left the places furious.
Another former student, Katie Ryan, told the daily that James Franco “always made everyone feel that there could be roles involved if we were ready to play sexual acts or take off our top.”
“Inaccurate”
For its part, Violet Paley back in the pages of the LA Times on his accusations already made on Twitter Sunday. The young aspiring director was in a car when he pushed her to perform oral sex. “I became very stressed and said,” Can we do it later? ” He was pushing my head down and I just did not want him to hate me so I did it. “
According to the young woman, she has since spoken with James Franco, after the explosion of the Weinstein case last fall, and the latter would have admitted to having acted improperly by engaging in a sexual relationship “with someone who was in full detoxification “but also reportedly did not do anything illegal.
Guest on the sets since the beginning of the week after his victory at the Golden Globes and in the middle of the campaign for the Oscars, James Franco was again questioned Wednesday night on the accusing tweets . “The ones I read were inaccurate,” he repeated, as the day before, on the show Late Night with Seth Meyers .
In a statement issued by the actor’s lawyer, one of his casting directors on the film The Long Home , due out in 2018, says he has never received any complaints from actresses.
“James does everything to help promising young actors, actresses and directors break into this sector,” she continues.
James Franco made the headlines in 2014 when a British had posted an exchange of messages on Instagram in which the actor offered to rent a hotel room even after learning that she was only 17 years old.