James Franco is responding to two women who claim they were sexually exploited by his acting school, Playhouse West Studio 4 (before it closed in 2017.)
Franco, 41, filed a demurrer — a written objection to the lawsuit filed in October by Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, in which he claims the allegations were “salacious” and that the two were “attention-hungry.” The demurrer added: “While the salacious allegations in the complaint have made great tabloid fodder, they are also false and inflammatory, legally baseless and brought improperly in the form of a class action largely to gain as much publicity as possible,” the demurrer stated. “This lawsuit is a travesty of justice and the culmination of a meritless campaign that has unfairly tarnished a decent man’s hard-earned reputation.”
Tither-Kaplan accused Franco of sexually exploiting her in January 2018 alongside four other women in an article published by The Los Angeles Times. She claimed that Franco removed safety guards while filming an oral sex scene on the set of the 2015 film The Long Home. Tither-Kaplan and Gaal’s lawsuit, which they filed in October, accused Franco and his business partners of engaging 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.”
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