Five women have come forward and accused actor James Franco of sexual misconduct with Charlyne Yi being the most recent. Franco’s friend and long-time collaborator, Seth Rogen, has said in an interview with The Sunday Times that he has no plans to work with Franco in the future as a result of these allegations.
In 2018, Rogen did an interview with Vulture where he stated that he would work with Franco again despite the allegations. Now in 2021 it seems he has changed his mind. He told The Sunday Times that,
“I… look back to that interview in 2018 where I comment that I would keep working with James, and the truth is that I have not, and I do not plan to right now.”
It seems to have hurt Rogen as he says that “it has changed many things in our relationship and our dynamic.” The pair have known each other for years and Rogen’s first professional acting job was with Franco on the 1999 series Freaks and Geeks.
These recent allegations have come from actress Charlyne Yi who worked alongside Franco on The Disaster Artist before quitting. She took to Instagram and shared her experience with Franco:
“When I tried to break legal contract & quit Disaster Artist because James Franco is a sexual predator, they tried to bribe me with a bigger acting role. I cried and told them that that was the exact opposite of what I wanted, that I didn’t feel safe working with a f*****g sexual predator. They minimised & said Franco being a predator was so last yr and that he changed… when I literally heard of him abusing new women that week. Predators will perform empathy, gaslight & say they will do better – all in order to protect themselves and continue to harm others. Enablers are just as toxic and are abusers too. Disgusted by white men choosing power over protecting children and women from predators. Educate, organise, and dismantle corruption in your circles and in the law.”
She continues and directly calls out Rogen:
“White men saying it’s not their responsibility when holding Franco accountable, or when holding Seth Rogen and enablers accountable. Then whose responsibility is it? The women and children who have PTSD from Franco? Or the future targets of abuse? White men perform infantilism when it comes to sacrificing their white supremacy & patriarchy bc they actually don’t give a f**k.”
Yi went further:
“Seth Rogen was one of the producers on this film so he definitely knows about the bribe and why I quit. Seth also did a sketch on SNL with Franco enabling Franco preying on children. Right after Franco was caught.”
The Sunday Times asked Rogen about her allegations. Rogen responded,
“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.”
He talks specifically about that joke on SNL, “I do look back at a joke I made on Saturday Night Live in 2014 and I very much regret making that joke. It was a terrible joke, honestly.”
The joke referenced messages that were made public between Franco and a teenage girl in which the pair apparently arranged to meet up.
The joke was as follows, Rogen pretended to read from a journal entry saying,
“I decided to prank James Franco. I posed as a girl on Instagram, told him I was way young; he seemed unfazed. I have a date to meet him at the Ace Hotel.”
This is not the first time Franco has been called out for his behaviour as two students of his in 2020 accused him of sexual misconduct. In response to these allegations, Franco’s legal representatives stated that,
“The salacious allegations in the Complaint have made great tabloid fodder, but like most tabloid stories, they are false and inflammatory, legally baseless and brought as a class action with the obvious goal of grabbing as much publicity as possible for attention-hungry Plaintiffs.”
Franco himself has yet to make a comment on Rogen’s interview or these new allegations from Yi.