Los Angeles – James Franco is being sued over claims students at his acting school were sexually exploited.
The ‘Deuce’ actor and his partners at Studio 4 – which opened in 2014 but closed three years later – are the subject of a lawsuit from Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who claimed the defendants “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behaviour towards female students by sexualising their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects”.
According to the New York Times newspaper, the women alleged their actions “led to an environment of harassment and sexual exploitation both in and out of the class.”
Students at the school, which had branches in Los Angeles and New York, were charged a monthly tuition cost of around $300 but there were also additional master classes costing up to $2,000, including a $750 session for sex scenes.
The lawsuit claimed those who wanted to take the sex scenes class were required to audition on videotape and “sign away their rights to these recordings.”
