James Franco has spoken out about the current status of his relationship with friend and longtime collaborator Seth Rogen following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Franco, 43, appeared on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Podcast this week to candidly address the ongoing controversy surrounding his personal and professional actions. Back in 2018, The Los Angeles Times published an article in which five women accused the actor of sexually inappropriate behavior. Four of these women were students at Franco's acting school.
The Spider-Man star remained silent on the issue for nearly four years, but has now addressed the allegations in his recent interview.
During the interview, he also responded to comments Rogen made back in May about their working relationship.
Rogen, 39, told The Sunday Times that he currently has no plans to work with Franco right now. The two actors starred alongside each other in movies such as Pineapple Express and The Interview.
Rogen also asserted: "What I can say is that I despise abuse and harassment and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that."
Responding to the comments in his interview on The Jess Cagle Podcast, Franco said: "He was asked about me, and I just wanna say I absolutely love Seth Rogen... I love Seth Rogen."
Franco added: "I worked with him for 20 years. We didn't have one fight for 20 years. Not one fight. He was my absolute closest work friend, collaborator. We just gelled."
"What he said is true, you know, we aren't working together right now and we don't have any plans to work together," the actor continued. "Of course, it was hurtful, in context, but I get it. He had to answer for me 'cause I was silent.
"He had to answer for me, and I don't want that. So that's why, that's one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you today: I don't want Seth or my brother [Dave Franco] or anyone to have to answer for me anymore."
Elsewhere in the interview, Franco directly addressed the sexual misconduct allegations made against him.
"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 said. "There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen."
Franco then admitted that he has battled sex addiction for years, and said that he did sleep with students at his acting school.
"Over the course of my teaching, I did sleep with students, and that was wrong," he said. "But like I said, it's not why I started the school and I wasn't the person that selected the people to be in the class. So it wasn't a 'master plan' on my part. But yes, there were certain instances where, you know what, I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn't have been."