Lawyers For James Franco Accusers Criticise Him For Recent Comments

Lawyers representing women who have accused James Franco of sexual misconduct have criticised recent remarks he made during a podcast. 

Speaking on The Jess Cagle podcast, which aired on SiriusXM, Franco revealed he had a ‘sex addiction’ and admitted to sleeping with students who attended his acting school. 

Back in January 2018, Franco was accused of sexual misconduct by five women - four of whom were his former students. 

Two of the women - Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal - filed a lawsuit against the actor in October last year and in June 2021, a $2.2million settlement was reached.

SiriusXM

Now lawyers working for the women have criticised his recent comments. 

Two of the law firms representing the women, Valli Kane & Vagnini and Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai, said via a spokesperson: "In addition to being blind about power dynamics, Franco is completely insensitive to, and still apparently does not care about, the immense pain and suffering he put his victims through with this sham of an acting school.”

Speaking to TMZ, the spokesperson added: “It is unbelievable that even after agreeing to a settlement he continues to downplay the survivors' experiences and ignore their pain, despite acknowledging he had no business starting such a school in the first place.”

During the podcast, Franco admitted that he ‘did sleep with students and that was wrong’ but denied setting up the school as a way to meet women. 

He went on: “I suppose at the time, my thinking was if it’s consensual, okay. 

“At the time I was not clear headed.”

He said he had a sex addiction after becoming sober following an addiction with alcohol. 

“It’s such a powerful drug,” he said. “I got hooked on it for 20 more years. The insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time.

“And I went to meetings all that time. I even tried to sponsor other people. 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.”

The actor says he’s been in ‘recovery’ from his sex addiction since 2016 and said he had ‘been doing a lot of work’ following the allegations. 

“I didn’t want to hurt people,” he added.

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]