On November 27, 2017, actor James Franco attends the IFP’s 27th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York City. Getty Images/Dimitris Kambouris According to court records made public Wednesday, James Franco and his co-defendants agreed to pay $2.2 million to resolve a lawsuit alleging he forced students at an acting and film school he created into inappropriate and exploitative sexual encounters. The two sides first agreed to settle the class-action lawsuit in February, but it took several months to iron out the details, and the monetary figure was never revealed. Actresses Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who first filed the lawsuit in October 2019 and were joined by many others, claimed that Franco pushed his students to perform increasingly explicit sex scenes on camera in a “orgy type setting” that went far beyond what was acceptable on Hollywood film sets. In addition, the two parties decided to issue a joint statement. “While Defendants continue to reject the accusations in the Complaint, they recognize that Plaintiffs have addressed serious problems,” the statement stated. “All parties strongly feel that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the maltreatment of women in Hollywood.” “We all believe that no one in the entertainment industry should encounter discrimination, harassment, or prejudice of any type, regardless of sex, color, religion, disability, ethnicity, background, gender, or sexual orientation.” Franco “sought to construct a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education,” according to the complaint, and pupils were persuaded to believe that roles in Franco’s films would be available to those who went along. Franco’s production firm, Rabbit Bandini, as well as his collaborators Vince Jolivette and Jay Davis, were named as defendants as well. There are “non-economic” provisions in the settlement that have not been made public. It has been filed for approval to a judge in Los Angeles. Tither-Kaplan made her allegations of sexual assault against Franco, along with those of other women, in the Los Angeles Times after Franco won a Golden Globe Award for “The Disaster Artist” in early 2018, when the #MeToo movement was just getting started. People who claim to have been sexually abused are rarely identified by the Associated Press, although they are frequently identified if they come out publicly./n
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