James Franco has been accused of sexually exploiting two women in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles.
Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal accuse Franco and his male colleagues of sexually exploiting women at Franco’s now-defunct acting school, Studio 4.
The suit alleges that Franco “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students by sexualizing their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects”.
Studio 4 hosted a series of masterclasses, including a $750 class focusing on sex scenes. The lawsuit claims that students that wanted to take part in the class were asked to audition on tape, for Franco to review the footage. It also alleges that students were asked to sign away their rights to the footage.
The suit alleges that the classes preyed on “often young and inexperienced females” who “were routinely pressured to engage in simulated sex acts that went far beyond the standards in the industry”.
Gaal has claimed that she was not accepted into the sex-scene class after she vocalised her unease about the audition process. Tither-Kaplan has claimed that her participation in the class landed her a role in one of Franco’s films. Tither-Kaplan has detailed an incident that took place during the filming of an orgy scene in one of his films where he allegedly “removed plastic guards that covered other actresses’ vaginas while he simulated oral sex on them, according to the lawsuit.”
“Studio 4 allowed Franco and his entourage to collect tuition for their own personal gain, and stockpile explicit footage of women,” the law firm representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.“The school diminished a woman’s role on set to that of a sexual object who could only obtain professional opportunities through gratuitous nudity, explicit sex scenes and succumbing to sexual advances by the men in charge.”
Franco is yet to release a statement addressing the allegations made against him.
