James Franco, the American actor, and filmmaker who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor on late Sunday, and recently got the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actor in a Comedy on Thursday, couldn’t assist to this last ceremony because five women accused him of sexual misconduct hours before his attendance.
Franco, 39, talked about the allegations on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers” this week. He said that he had his “own side of the story,” but he preferred to hold them back because he believed in the “underrepresented” people who had been “getting their stories out.”
On same Thursday, Los Angeles Times published a report about the five women accusing Franco with sexual allegations. The actor was wearing a Time’s Up pin on Sunday while receiving his award gotten thanks to The Disaster Artist.
As Pulse Headlines previously reported, artists assisted to the Sunday ceremony wearing black with this pin on to recall a change inside the Hollywood industry – which has been filled with sexual allegations since the American mogul and producer Harvey Weinstein was accused the first time, last year. That provoked a massive wave of people going out with their own stories. Now, Franco joins that group of accused individuals.
A sexually exploitative behavior
Sarah Tither-Kaplan, one of the women that have accused Franco, and former acting student at the film school that the American actor founded, said that watching Franco wearing the pin was “like a slap” in her face.
The five women – four of Franco’s students, and his mentor – said they found his behavior inappropriate and sexually exploitative. However, although they felt uncomfortable as they claim, they didn’t mention anything because they believed that the American actor could offer them career advancement.
“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.
Tither-Kaplan told The Times that Franco, three years ago, removed the protective plastic guards that were covering the other actresses’ vaginas while performing a nude orgy scene. Thus, he was able to give them oral sex without protection.
Other two students said that Franco went angry when no actress accepted to go topless.
Franco’s attorney, Michael Plonsker, disputed all of the allegations and directed The Times to Franco’s comments Tuesday night on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
“Look, in my life I pride myself on taking responsibility for things that I have done,” said Franco at The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “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.”
Franco then added that if he did “something wrong,” he will “fix it” because “he (has) to.”
Source: LA Times