James Franco Sued For Alleged Sexual Exploitation At His Acting School

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James Franco Sued For Alleged Sexual Exploitation

Actor James Franco is being sued over sexual misconduct that allegedly occurred at his acting school, Studio 4.

According to the reports from The New York Times, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal have both filed a lawsuit against Franco along with his business partner Vince Jolivette, accusing the men of sexually exploiting students at the now defunct school. In the suit, Franco and Jolivette’s Rabbit Bandini Productions company is also listed as a defendant along with the company’s general manager Jay Davis.

Tither-Kaplan and Gaal are former students of the school, which shut down completely in 2017. In the suit, they say that Franco and his partners “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 women go on to explain that they joined the Los Angeles branch of Studio 4 in 2014, paying approximately $300 in monthly tuition. The plaintiffs claim the school also offered additional classes, which included a $750 master class for sex scenes, specifically. According to the lawsuit, any students who were interested in taking the sex scene class were required to submit an audition tape for Franco to review; which also required students to forfeit their rights to the footage.

In the lawsuit, Gaal claims she auditioned for the master class, but ended up being  denied entry after she expressed some uneasiness. Tither-Kaplan, on the other hand, said she ultimately took the class, which actually led to several roles in Franco’s independent films. In these roles she said she was often asked to appear in nude scenes or sex scenes. During the making of an orgy scene for one of his films, Franco went as far as removing plastic guards that covered other actresses’ vaginas while he simulated oral sex on them, according to the lawsuit.

This is not the first time we’re hearing of these accusations about Franco from Tither-Kaplan. She previously spoke about her experiences at Studio 4 in a 2018 article in the Los Angeles Times. She also took to Twitter to blast James Franco for sporting a Times Up pin at the 2018 Golden Globes ceremony, given his own actions behind-the-scenes.

Franco addressed the accusations against him shortly following the 2018 Golden Globes.

“In my life, I pride myself on taking responsibility for things that I have done. I have to do that to maintain my well being, ” he said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “… 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 … If I have done something wrong. I will fix it. I have to.”

Now, after filing the lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Tither-Kaplan told the Times she hasn’t spoken to Franco in two years and that he has yet to make amends.

Tither-Kaplan and Gaal are seeking monetary damages along with the return or destruction of any video recordings submitted by former Studio 4 students. The plaintiffs are also seeking “class-action status so other women who may have similar histories with the defendants can join in the suit.”