Hollywood actor Seth Rogen has officially closed the door on his long-standing partnership with James Franco. In a recent conversation with The New York Times, the 44-year-old actor confirmed that their famous collaborative relationship is over.
What he said
Speaking with the NYT, Seth made it clear that their long-standing partnership is over. “I honestly think the nuance of it is too personal for me to get into right now. It is a very personal thing. There’s the public-facing side of it, which I’ve spoken about, and I have the same stance publicly that I’ve had, and I think the proof is in the pudding — I have not worked with him in years,” he said.
When asked if the two still keep in touch, Seth gave a definitive answer: “I haven’t talked to him in a long time, no. I haven’t worked with him in a really long time, and I have no plans to.” He confirmed that their dynamic will not change moving forward.
A look back at their partnership
Seth Rogen and James Franco first met in 1999 on the set of the high school comedy series Freaks and Geeks. Seth was just 16 at the time, while James was 21. Even though the network cancelled the show after only one season, it launched both of their careers and launched a multi-million-dollar comedy empire.
For nearly 20 years, they were among the most successful duos in film. They starred together in a long list of massive comedy hits, including Knocked Up (2007), the stoner classic Pineapple Express (2008), the end-of-the-world comedy This Is the End (2013), and the political comedy The Interview (2014). They also worked on the animated movie Sausage Party (2016) and collaborated on The Disaster Artist (2017), which won Franco a Golden Globe.
The misconduct claims that ended the friendship
In January 2018, everything changed for James Franco. Right after he won a Golden Globe for The Disaster Artist, the Los Angeles Times published a report featuring five women who accused him of sexually inappropriate behaviour. Four of these women were students at his acting school, Studio 4.
The students’ allegations were serious. One accuser stated that James took advantage of his power as a mentor, pushing students into uncomfortable sexual situations on camera. His legal team denied the claims, but the situation escalated in October 2019 when two students filed a class-action lawsuit. The court filing claimed he “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behaviour towards female students by sexualizing their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects.”
In February 2021, Franco settled the lawsuit for $2.235 million. While he legally denied the allegations in the paperwork, he later admitted to making poor choices during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast. James stated, “Over the course of my teaching, I did sleep with students, and that was wrong. … There were certain instances where, you know what, I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn’t have been.”