James Franco has agreed to pay $2,235,000 to formally end a 2019 class action lawsuit filed by his former students, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who accused him and two associates of sexual misconduct while they were teaching acting at Studio 4. The lawsuit was settled back in February and the final figure was made public via court records on Wednesday. A Los Angeles judge will still need to approve the settlement’s terms.
Tither-Kaplan and Gaal first filed the lawsuit against Franco and two of his production company associates, Vince Jolivette and Jay Davis, in 2019. The plaintiffs alleged Franco, Jolivette, and Davis used the now closed acting school to foster “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.” Franco denied the allegations via his lawyers, who called the accusations “false and inflammatory, legally baseless and brought as a class action with the obvious goal of grabbing as much publicity as possible for attention-hungry Plaintiffs.” Studio 4 film school operated with branches in Los Angeles and New York from 2014 to 2017.
As for the payments, Tither-Kaplan will receive $670,500, while Gaal is set to collect $223,500—minus attorney fees for both. Per the settlement’s terms, Tither-Kaplan and Gaal will be required to drop their fraud claims against Franco and his partners. The remaining $1.341 million will be placed in a fund for the class action’s other students, who were granted about two months to withdraw from the suit should they decide to pursue their claims further. Any unclaimed money will be donated to the National Women’s Law Center. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Franco has also agreed to ‘non-economic’ terms for the individual plaintiffs, although that’s presently the subject of a motion to seal.”
According to the settlement, all parties agreed to release a joint statement, which allows Franco, Jolivette, and Davis to deny any wrongdoing against the accusers. The statement reads: “While Defendants continue to deny the allegations in the complaint, they acknowledge that Plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the mistreatment of women in Hollywood. All agree on the need to make sure that no one in the entertainment industry — regardless of sex, race, religion, disability, ethnicity, background, gender or sexual orientation — faces discrimination, harassment or prejudice of any kind.”
In recent months, some of Franco’s collaborators have distanced themselves from him. Seth Rogen, who has worked with Franco on various projects, said in an interview with The Sunday Times that he has no intentions to work with Franco again. Busy Philipps, a Freaks and Geeks alum alongside Franco and Rogen, said on the Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh podcast, “I wouldn’t want to work with someone who has multiple allegations of predatory behavior. So, in fact, I won’t.”
After the settlement became public, Tither-Kaplan tweeted, “Not commenting on the news that broke today. I’m very lucky to finally have a strong support system. I hope soon my focus can just be on making movies. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
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