Actor James Franco Settles Lawsuit With Former Students Who Earlier Accused Him Of Sexual Misconduct

Hollywood actor James Franco has now reached a tentative deal with two of his former students who had accused him of sexual misconduct when they attended his acting school. A report on Entertainment Weekly reported that a Joint Status Report which had been filed in court by both parties on February 11, had confirmed that they have reached a settlement and that plaintiffs Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal dropped their original complaints.

"The Plaintiffs can confirm that the Parties filed a Joint Status Report notifying the Court of a tentative settlement. The settlement will be further memorialized in a Joint Stipulation of Settlement to be filed with the Court at a later date," the statement said. 

Tither-Kaplan and Gaal said they felt the need to speak about James Franco's case after The Spiderman star had been called out for wearing a #TimesUp button at the 2018 Golden Globes where he won the Best Actor award. It was a movement in the award ceremony which respected the MeToo movement, where various women had started opening up about sexual harassments they faced in Hollywood.

While the movement started in Hollywood in 2017, a major wave had been witnessed in Bollywood in the year 2018, when actress Tanushree Dutta opened up about being harassed by Nana Patekar. 

The TimesUp movement was an indication for men, who had earlier harassed women sexually. Tither-Kaplan and other women made allegations on Twitter that James Franco had abused his position of power and engaged in sexual exploitation. 

A 2018 report on Los Angeles Times had reported, that Tither-Kaplan "in a nude orgy scene she filmed with Franco and several women three years ago, he removed protective plastic guards covering other actresses' vaginas while simulating oral sex on them."

James Franco too had addressed the allegations at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 

"Look, 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. I do it whenever there's something wrong that needs to be changed. I make it a point to do it. 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. I think it's a good thing and I support it," Franco told Colbert.