James Franco has been accused of sexual misconduct by two former students at his acting school. The lawsuit - filed in Los Angeles by actors Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal - alleges Franco and his partners at the now-closed Studio 4 ‘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 project’ while the school operated from 2014-2017.
According to the Guardian, the legal documents say that The Disaster Artist star offered the women roles in independent films he was producing or directing - but that participants were ‘routinely pressured to engage in simulated sex acts that went far beyond the standards in the industry’. Tither-Kaplan, who was one of the women who accused the actor of sexual misconduct in 2018, alleges that she was cast for an orgy scene where the actor removed plastic guards used to cover the women’s vaginas while he simulated oral sex.
The lawsuit also states that students had to audition on video for a sex scenes class - which cost £608 - so Franco could later review the material, and then sign away their rights to these recordings. Now, the actors are looking for the return of any recordings and damages.
Franco’s lawyer Michael Plonsker said his client would fight the lawsuit. ‘This is not the first time that these claims have been made and they have already been debunked,’ he said in a statement given to USA Today. ‘We have not had an opportunity to review the ill-informed Complaint in-depth since it was leaked to the press before it was filed and our client has yet to even be served. James will not only fully defend himself, but will also seek damages from the plaintiffs and their attorneys for filing this scurrilous publicity-seeking lawsuit.'
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