James Franco admits to sleeping with students, says he had a sex addiction

James Franco acknowledged he slept with students from his acting school and said he struggled with sex addiction during that time.

Franco said he “did sleep with students and that was wrong,” during an interview with The Jess Cagle Podcast on Wednesday.

Spoke to James Franco about sexual misconduct allegations, addiction, and lots of other things. Interview airs tomorrow on #TheJessCagleShow (@SIRIUSXM 109 2pET / 11aPT) and goes up on The Jess Cagle Podcast (available everywhere) tomorrow. https://t.co/KdJdzLDj9Z via @YouTube

— .@MrJessCagle (@MrJessCagle) December 22, 2021

This is the first time Franco has addressed the sexual misconduct accusations placed against him four years ago by five women. The actor said he had not talked about the issue because "there were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen."

In October 2019, two women filed a civil suit against Franco, accusing him of exploiting aspiring actors in his acting and filmmaking school, Studio 4. They said Franco tried to "create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education."

The lawsuit was settled in June and Franco paid $2.2 million.

Franco said he did not start the school to lure women for sexual purposes. “I suppose at the time, my thinking was if it’s consensual, OK,” he added. “At the time I was not clearheaded.”

The actor said he was a sex addict at the time. He has been in recovery since 2016.

“It’s such a powerful drug. I got hooked on it for 20 more years. The insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time,” he said. “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."