James Franco has claimed he’s ‘changed’ amid the end of his friendship with Seth Rogen and controversies over the years.
Multiple women came forward back in 2018, as well as four of his former pupils, accusing Franco of behavior that was sexually inappropriate or exploitative.
A year later in 2019, actors Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal filed a lawsuit alleging that Franco had engaged in ‘sexually-charged behaviour towards female students’ at his now-defunct acting school.
Franco said the 2018 allegations were ‘not accurate’, but it was reported in 2021 that he had agreed to pay $2.23m to settle the lawsuit.
The whole ordeal led to the breakdown of his relationship with Rogen, something that seemed to hit Franco hard.
“Being told you’re bad is painful,” he told Variety in a recent interview.
“But ultimately, that’s kind of what I needed to just stop going the way I was going.”
As a result of the allegations, Franco was dumped by Hollywood too, though he did make good use of his new free time.
He continued: “Whatever had been going on with me before, I had to change my whole way of life.
“So I am proud of the kind of work I did during that time. And yeah, I wasn’t working in movies, but I certainly was doing a lot of work to change who I was.
“Up until, let’s say the past eight years I had a good career,’ he told the publication. ‘But it was very hard for me to enjoy it.
“I was a workaholic; I was going all the time. And even when there were good moments – like a movie that people liked or, I don’t know, [being] nominated for an award or whatever it might be, whatever good moments along the way that I wish I could have appreciated – I just didn’t because I had this weird thing where it was just like, I always need more.”
