James Franco to Pay $2.2 Million Settlement in Sexual Misconduct Suit
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James Franco has agreed to pay $2,235,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging he coerced his acting students into performing explicit sex scenes on camera.
The details of the settlement were made public in court filings released Wednesday and first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
In October 2020, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal – two former students in Franco’s acting class – filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging that the actor and his associates “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students by sexualizing their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects.”
The woman argued they were victims of fraud, paying $300 a month for an acting school opened by Franco, who they claimed sexually objectified them.
Of the $2,235,000 in the agreement, Tither-Kaplan will receive $670,500, and Gaal will receive $223,500 – both minus attorney fees. The remainder of the settlement will go into a common fund for the rest of the members of the class action suit.
As part of the settlement, all parties have signed off on a joint statement in which Franco could continue to deny any wrongdoing.
The statement reads, “While Defendants continue to deny the allegations in the Complaint, they acknowledge that Plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the mistreatment of women in Hollywood. All agree on the need to make sure that no one in the entertainment industry — regardless of race, religion, disability, ethnicity, background, gender or sexual orientation — faces discrimination, harassment or prejudice of any kind.”
Franco was first accused of sexual misconduct in 2018 when several women told the Los Angeles Times that he had engaged in “sexually inappropriate or exploitative behavior.”
Tither-Kaplan was quoted in the article as saying that Franco had urged students to go topless and participate in orgy scenes for the class he taught, alleging the actor “removed protective plastic guards covering other actresses’ vaginas while simulating oral sex on them.”
