James Franco to pay $2.2 million to settle sexual misconduct lawsuits

Actor James Franco will pay more than $2.2 million to settle lawsuits if a judge approves of the deal.

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The settlement is in response to a lawsuit brought by two former acting school students that said he put them through sexually exploitative auditions and film shoots, The New York Times reported.

There is also a class-action suit against Franco where 1,500 students at his school, Studio 4, said they were defrauded, BBC News reported.

The settlement was agreed to in February but details were recently filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County.

The financial breakdown includes $894,000 to settle the sexual exploitation claims brought by plaintiffs Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, The New York Times reported.

The two women accused Franco of intimidating them to perform gratuitous sex scenes without legal protections when they were students in a master class that focused on sex scenes.

The lawsuit said Franco “sought to create a pipeline of young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education.” The women thought that by doing the scenes in class that they would get roles in one of his films.

Franco’s lawyer said the women were “ill-informed,” BBC News reported.

Tither-Kaplan will receive $670,500 minus $223,000 attorney fees for her lawyer. Gaal will get $223.500 minus her lawyer’s $74,500 payment, The New York Times reported.

As for the fraud case, $1,341,000 will go to the class-action plaintiffs.

Despite the payout, Franco did not admit to doing anything wrong, the Times reported.

His lawyers have called the claims “false and inflammatory” in the past, BBC News reported.

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