James Franco has long been widely praised as an eccentric artist who's ahead of his
time and talented enough to justify just how, well, weird he is.
But no amount of acting accolades can quite compensate for some of his bad behavior.
Here are some of the disturbing details revealed about James Franco.
Ally Sheedy, who's most famous for her role of Allison in 1985's The Breakfast Club, was
pretty furious about James Franco's win at the 2018 Golden Globes.
Back in 2014, she starred in The Long Shrift, a play Franco directed, and according to Vanity
Fair, Sheedy tweeted during the 2018 awards show ceremony,
"James Franco just won.
Please never ever ask me why I left the film/TV business...Ok wait.
Bye.
Christian Slater and James Franco at a table on [The Golden Globes].
#MeToo...Why is a man hosting?
Why is James Franco allowed in?"
As of 2019, Sheedy has deleted her tweets and never expounded on what exactly happened
to make her feel this way about the actor.
However, it should be noted that Franco was hit with multiple allegations of sexual misconduct
on social media that same week after he was spotted wearing a Time's Up pin at the event.
Following Franco's Golden Globes win, an actress named Sarah Kaplan also called the actor out,
this time for his allegedly sketchy practices on unnamed independent films.
Kaplan tweeted,
"Hey James Franco, nice [Times Up] pin at the [Golden Globes].
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."
She followed up her tweet by saying,
"Hey James Franco, now that you have a Golden Globe why don't you give speaking roles that
don't require nudity in your upcoming films to the dozens of women who have done full
nudity + sex scenes in your indie films and art projects?...TBT to me speaking up for
myself and other women on a franco set and immediately getting called a diva, told I
was 'out of line', and publicly humiliated by the producer."
Franco has also been accused of being pretty stingy with his actors.
In August 2013, Radar Online revealed that he supposedly expected actresses to appear
in his film, The Sound And The Fury, for next to nothing just to have the opportunity to
work with him.
The casting call reportedly read:
"For those wanting to work with James, that in itself can be considered great currency.
He is a fantastic director and quite loyal to his actors!!
This story is both deep and rich!"
While Franco didn't publicly comment on Kaplan's allegations specifically, he did respond to
the wave of accusations that hit during the awards show.
When asked about the allegations during a January 2018 appearance on The Late Show with
Stephen Colbert, Franco said that he supports Time's Up, calling it "powerful."
But he acted dumbfounded in response to Ally Sheedy's tweets.
"I had nothing but a great time with her.
I have total respect for her.
I have no idea why she was upset.
She took the tweet down.
I don't know."
Franco went on to say he prides himself on taking responsibility for any mistakes he's
made in the past, but also claimed that not everything that was said about him was true.
"I completely support people coming out and being able to have a voice because they didn't
have a voice for so long.
I don't want to, you know, shut them down in any way."
He added that if he's done anything wrong, he doesn't know what else to do other than
try to fix it.
"I really don't have the answers.
I think the point of this whole thing is that we listen."
Franco won a Golden Globe for playing Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist and had no problem
with Wiseau tagging along the awards campaign trail, including a joint appearance on Jimmy
Kimmel Live!
But when Franco finally went to accept the trophy for his portrayal of the odd filmmaker,
he appeared to physically block Wiseau from speaking into the microphone on stage with
him.
Franco told the audience,
"I am very happy to share this moment with him today."
But that rang hollow considering he'd just won an award for a movie he made based on
Wiseau's life, and then basically snubbed him on stage in front of the world.
Wiseau later told the Los Angeles Times that if given the chance, he would have said,
"If a lot of people loved each other, the world would be a better place to live.
See The Room, have fun, and enjoy life.
The American Dream is alive, and it's real."
"That's it, that's what I want to say, nice things, but as you noticed somebody was like,
'No, you cannot do that.'"
The People's Improv Theater in New York City, a staple for comedic and improvisational performers,
received a cease and desist letter from Franco's attorneys in July 2017 when the actor learned
that they planned to host a production of a play called James Franco and Me.
Kevin Broccoli, an actor and the playwright of the production, told The New York Times,
"I'm not someone who's trying to get into legal entanglements by any means, but anyone
who comes to see the show would see that it's totally satire and within fair use guidelines."
In the play, Broccoli's character waits in a hospital where his dying father resides,
when Franco, played by a different actor each night, comes to ruminate with him about life.
Broccoli added,
"The play is about mortality and making the most of what you have.
I imagined that if anyone would be game for this it'd be [Franco]...I've always been kind
of fascinated with him because of how much product he puts out."
In October 2016, a photographer sued Franco for allegedly headbutting him during a Lana
Del Rey concert.
According to documents obtained by TMZ, the photographer alleged that the actor "viciously
charged" and headbutted him without provocation two years earlier during Del Rey's performance
at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
What's more, the photographer claimed that Franco was, quote, "smiling, rather demonically
[and then had a] blank expression of joy on his face" when he allegedly knocked him down.
In 2014, HuffPost reported that Franco called out Gawker for insinuating that he was gay
and living with a friend in a romantic relationship, but that didn't stop the actor from allegedly
mocking the LGBTQ+ community often in his films.
Two years later, he told New York Magazine,
"There is a bit of overfocusing on my sexuality, both by the straight press and the gay press...But
if your definition of gay and straight is who I sleep with, then I guess you could say
I'm a gay c--- tease...Yeah, I'm a little gay, and there's a gay James."
Franco had previously conducted an interview between his so-called "gay James" and "straight
James," writing,
"I'm gay to the point of intercourse."
According to Queerty, Franco was later accused of "making a mockery" of gay porn star Brent
Corrigan in the 2016 film King Cobra, which was reportedly based on Corrigan's life.
Corrigan said of Franco's movie,
"Not approved by me.
It tells a story with contempt for queer culture & mockery for porn."
Around that time, The Advocate compiled a list of homophobic moments in Franco's pal
Seth Rogen's films, as well as several scenes from 2014's The Interview and a scene from
This Is The End, in which they co-starred, and their Kim Kardashian/Kanye West parody
"Bound 3."
Franco starred in a Broadway production of Of Mice and Men in 2014.
But while his performance was generally well-received, not every reviewer was impressed, and Franco
apparently doesn't take criticism all that well.
The New York Times theater reviewer Ben Brantley wrote of Franco's performance,
"Mr. Franco is often understated to the point of near invisibility...Though Mr. Franco musters
a single, perfect tear for the play's tragic climax, I only came close to shedding one."
Instead of shaking it off and reveling in his good press from other outlets, Franco
instead took a screencap of a positive review from Variety and, according to Page Six, captioned
it on Instagram with:
"Sadly the [New York Times] and Ben Brantley have embarrassed themselves.
Brantley is such a little b---- he should be working for Gawker.com instead of the paper
of record.
The theater community hates him, and for good reason, he's an idiot."
Back in December 2011, New York University professor named José Santana accused the
prestigious college of firing him because he gave Franco a D in his "Directing The Actor"
class, and Santana claimed that the grade was so low because Franco rarely bothered
showing up to class at all.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Santana sued Franco for making, quote, "disparaging
and inaccurate public statements" after he received the poor grade, but the suit was
dismissed in April 2013, when Santana's legal team couldn't actually locate Franco to serve
him with paperwork required to go to court.
Santana told the New York Post,
"The school has bent over backwards to create a Franco-friendly environment, that's for
sure.
The university has done everything in its power to curry favor with James Franco."
Santana also alleged that Franco, quote, "bought" better grades from another professor by casting
him in one of his productions that the teacher also wrote and directed.
Santana added,
"In my opinion, they've turned the NYU graduate film degree into swag for James Franco's purposes,
a possession, something you can buy."
Franco has denied getting the teacher fired, and claims Santana was not asked to come back
to the school because he simply wasn't good at his job.
He told Dorri Olds,
"I did not care one bit about the grade, I knew I was gonna get the grade, he was a bad
teacher."
In October 2019, Franco found himself in more hot water when two former students of the
star's closed acting school, Studio 4, filed a class action lawsuit with claims of sex
discrimination, sexual harassment, fraud, and false advertising.
These students included Sarah Kaplan, the actress who originally accused Franco of exploitation
in January 2018, and Toni Gaal.
According to Variety, the suit alleged that students were misled by Franco's $300-per-month
drama school.
While Studio 4 appeared to be a legitimate learning opportunity, the women claimed they
were, quote, "intimidated and sexually objectified."
Those who undressed in front of Franco were allegedly "afforded special treatment," but
things reportedly got even more inappropriate in Franco's sex scene master class.
Variety reported that in these classes,
"[Students were allegedly] pressured to engage in sexual activity that went well beyond the
industry norm."
The actor reportedly taped these sexual auditions and reviewed them to select students for admission.
Franco's attorney denied the claims to Variety, stating that they'd already "been debunked."
As of October 2019, the star has yet to be served, but he plans to "fully defend himself"
and seek damages.
Though Busy Philipps and Franco were on-screen lovers in the cult '90s classic Freaks and
Geeks, it seems like the pair didn't always get along in real life.
In her 2018 memoir, This Will Only Hurt a Little, Philipps accused her former castmate
of being, in her words, "a f---ing bully" who physically assaulted her on set.
"When we were on Freaks and Geeks, we were 19 and we really, really disliked each other,
it's well documented."
The whole thing reportedly went down while filming a scene in which Philipps' character
was supposed to nudge Franco's character.
You'd think a nudge between an on-screen couple would be nothing, especially since they were
acting, but Franco allegedly got so angry when Philipps followed the script's direction
that he reportedly "threw" her to the ground.
Phillips wrote,
"He grabbed both my arms and screamed in my face, 'DON'T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!'
And he threw me to the ground.
Flat on my back.
Wind knocked out of me."
Philipps later told her co-star, Linda Cardellini, about the incident, and the actress encouraged
her to report it to her manager.
The director and producers forced Franco to apologize, but he reportedly didn't face any
actual consequences.
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