James Franco Says He’s Been In Recovery For Sex Addiction

That’s right – James Franco is back, baybee! James Franco has been lying all the way low since he was accused of sexual misconduct by several women, some of whom alleged he was running his acting classes like a casting couch. He got called out by civilians and famous types alike, and it seemed like the name James Franco was about to become but a memory. Except, James Franco recently settled the sexual misconduct lawsuit that was filed against him by two of his former acting school students, which means James Franco’s return to work redemption tour begins! He recently made a stop at SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast, to assure everyone that he’s been doing the work to become a better, less misconduct-y man.

As mentioned, James’ first interview in nearly four years happened on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast, where he explained why he hasn’t said anything. via People magazine:

“In 2018, there were some complaints about me and an article about me and, at that moment I just thought ‘I’m gonna be quiet. I’m gonna be, I’m gonna pause.’ Did not seem like the right time to say anything,” he recalled. “There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen. There’s a writer Damon Young and he talked about when something like this happens, the natural human instinct is to just make it stop. You just want to get out in front of it and whatever you have to do apologize, you know, get it done. But what that doesn’t do is allow you to do the work to, and to look at what was underneath.”

What was underneath, according to James Franco, was an out-of-control sex addiction that he didn’t even know he had. One of the main allegations lobbied at James Franco by his accusers was that he behaved completely inappropriately to female students of his acting school, Playhouse West Studio 4, and misused his power to encourage wildly sexual situations. You don’t have to wait for a study put out by James Franco’s therapist, because James himself revealed that his sex addiction was really just a substance abuse situation manifesting itself in a negative way. via People:

“It’s such a powerful drug,” he explained. “I got hooked on [alcohol] for 20 more years. The insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time. And I went to meetings all that time. I even tried to sponsor other people. So in my head, it was like, ‘Oh, I’m sober. I’m living a spiritual life.’ Where on the side, I’m acting out now in all these other ways, and I couldn’t see it.”

After he got sober, James says he started fucking anything that came along and admitted he’s cheated on everyone but his current girlfriend, Isabel Pakzad. He adds that because of this, he was totally blind to any kind of power dynamics or people’s feelings. He also says he never intended to hurt anyone, he just couldn’t see that his actions were that of a huge asshole.

“I didn’t want to hurt people. In fact, I wasn’t really a one-night-stand guy. People that I got together with or dated, I’d see them for a long time, years. It’s just that I couldn’t be present for any of them. And the behavior spun out to a point where it was like I was hurting everybody.”

Yes, he had sex with his students, but that’s not the reason why he opened his acting school (which was open from 2014 to 2017). He claims the sex was consensual because everyone was an “adult,” but that it was wrong because of the power imbalance.

All this good therapy talk could be desperate damage control. Although I guess if he was really desperate, he would have ended the interview by begging Seth Rogen to stop sending his phone calls directly to voice mail.

Pic: Wenn.com