Seth Rogen and James Franco first achieved notice together. They were both on Freaks and Geeks, the one-season show that launched so many careers, and since then they’ve regularly teamed up, from Pineapple Express to This is the End to The Interview. But they may never do so again: In a new interview with the Sunday Times (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), Rogen finally spoke bluntly about the long-standing sexual misconduct allegations lodged at his longtime screen partner.
Franco has been accused of inappropriate behavior a number of times in the last decade. In 2014, a 17-year-old accused him of contacting her over Instagram DM, trying to schedule a meet-up. In 2018, five women accused him of various unseemly behavior. Franco has denied all the allegations. When Rogen was recently asked about those accusations, he took a sharper tack than he ever had before.
“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.
The actor and filmmaker also talked about the time he made a joke about the allegations made against Franco while hosting SNL in 2014. “I decided to prank James Franco,” he joked. “I posed as a girl on Instagram [and] told him I was way young. He seemed unphased. I have a date to meet him at the Ace Hotel.”
Cut to seven years later and Rogen says he “very much regrets making that joke,” which he called “terrible.” He added, “I also 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.”
Recently Rogen has re-evaluated some of his past actions, including apologizing to Emma Watson for his handling of a scene in This is the End that got a little too extreme, prompting her to drop out of it entirely.
(Via The Sunday Times and EW)