Almost four years after he was first accused of sexually inappropriate conduct and exploitation by at least five women at his now-defunct acting school, actor James Franco has finally broken his silence on the matter. In statements released from The Jesse Cagle podcast recently, Franco, aged 43, stated that he had indeed slept with students and was suffering from sex addiction.
The actor said that he “did sleep with students, and that was wrong.” “I suppose at the time, my thinking was if it’s consensual, OK. At the time I was not clearheaded,” the actor said as he added that he had not been running the school for that purpose.
Franco also explained about his alcohol and sex addiction, saying that he had been sober while his addiction to sex became worse with time. “It’s (sex) such a powerful drug. I got hooked on it for 20 more years. The insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time,” Franco mentioned during the podcast.
Stating that he no longer wants to hurt people, James Franco said he has been doing some work upon himself to change that aspect of his personality.
Earlier, Franco had agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle the suit filed against him by two of his former students who had alleged that Franco was guilty of inappropriate and sexual behaviour. At the time when the first set of allegations were levelled against him, Franco had denied his part in the whole thing repeatedly.