A New York Times event, that James Franco was due to speak at, has been cancelled, following several new allegations of sexual misconduct against the actor.
After Franco attended the Golden Globes, where he won the award for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for his role in The Disaster Artist, actress Ally Sheedy posted now-deleted tweets about the actor, one of which said: “James Franco just won. Please never ask me why I left the film/tv business.”
Two other women also took to Twitter to share their alleged experiences with the 39-year-old, after seeing that he wore a Time’s Up badge to the event.
“Cute #TIMESUP pin James Franco,” actor Violet Paley wrote. “Remember the time you pushed my head down in a car towards your exposed penis & that other time you told my friend to come to your hotel when she was 17? After you had already been caught doing that to a different 17 year old?”
Paley, responding to comments on her original tweet, then said she had also witnessed Franco “doing something non consensual” with someone else and that the actor had called her and “a few other girls” to give them “an overdue, annoyed, convenient phone ‘apology.'”
Paley also revealed she was once in a consensual relationship with Franco and alleged that “there are a lot more details that will be out soon.”
Sarah Tither-Kaplan, one of Franco’s former students, also took to Twitter after the Golden Globes to allege that Franco employed her to appear fully nude in one of his projects, saying the whole experience was exploitative and an abuse of power.
Just hours after the event’s cancellation, Franco was pressed about the allegations by Stephen Colbert on The Late Show.
“There were some things on Twitter, I haven’t read them. I’ve heard about them,” Franco said of the online accusations, The Hollywood Reporter notes.
“I have no idea what I did to Ally Sheedy… I have total respect for her. She took the tweet down, I can’t speak for her.”
He continued:”The others, in my life I pride myself on taking responsibility for what I’ve done… “The things I heard are not accurate, but I completely support people coming out because they didn’t have a voice for so long. I don’t want to shut them down in anyway. I think its a good thing and I support it.”
The Disaster Artist director added: “I can’t live if there’s restitution to be made.
” If I’ve done something wrong, I will fix it. I have to. I don’t know what else to do. As far as the bigger issue of how we do it, I really don’t have the answers. I think the point of this whole thing is that we listen. I’m here to listen and learn and change my perspective where it’s off. I’m completely willing and want to.”
