Ancil
James Franco announced that his 20-year friendship with Seth Rogen is ‘finished.’
After meeting as co-stars in Freaks and Geeks in 1999, the actors worked together on Pineapple Express, The Interview, This Is The End, and The Disaster Artist for almost two decades.
However their work together reached an abrupt end when Franco was accused of sexually inappropriate behavior by multiple women in 2018. A year later, two of Franco’s former acting students filed a sexual misconduct lawsuit which the actor settled in 2021.
Rogen told The Sunday Times that year that he would not work with Franco again due to the claims. “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,” Rogen said.
“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,” he said. “I can say it, um, you know, it has changed many things in our relationship and our dynamic.”
Franco told Variety when promoting Hey Joe: “I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over.”
“And not for lack of trying,” Franco said. “I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”
In 2021, SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast revealed that the actor had slept with some of his acting students.
“Over the course of my teaching, I did sleep with students, and that was wrong,” Franco said. “But like I said, it’s not why I started the school and I wasn’t the person that selected the people to be in the class.
“So it wasn’t a ‘master plan’ on my part. But yes, there were certain instances where, you know what, I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn’t have been.”
He went on to address Rogen’s response to the allegations at that time, saying: “I love Seth Rogen. I worked with him for 20 years. We didn’t have one fight for 20 years. Not one fight. He was my absolute closest work friend, collaborator. We just gelled.
“What he said is true. You know, we aren’t working together right now and we don’t have any plans to work together.
“Of course, it was hurtful, in context, but I get it. He had to answer for me ’cause I was silent. He had to answer for me, and I don’t want that. So that’s why, that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you today: I don’t want Seth or my brother or anyone to have to answer for me anymore.”
