James Franco recently spoke out about the sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against him in 2019, admitting the allegations made against him were, in part, the culmination of his addiction to validation.

"Once I stopped using alcohol to sort of fill that hole, it was like, 'Oh success, attention — this is great,'" the actor shared during an appearance on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "And so, in a weird way, I got addicted to validation, or success, or whatever that is."

Franco added that, after he decided to get sober as a teenager, his battle with sex addiction got even worse. "I got hooked on it for 20 more years, and the insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time," the actor explained. "I went to meetings all that time. I even tried to sponsor other people. And so in my head, it was like, 'Oh, I'm sober. I'm living a spiritual life.' Where on the side, I'm acting out now in all these other ways. And I couldn't see it."

Actress Sarah Tither-Kaplan made initial allegations against Franco alongside several other women in a Los Angeles Times story, which was published following the actor's 2018 Golden Globe win for The Disaster Artist. In 2019, Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal filed a class action lawsuit against Franco, his production company Rabbit Bandini and Franco's partners Vince Jolivette and Jay Daviss. In the suit, multiple women accused Franco of being sexually exploitative during a master class on sex scenes taught by the actor at the now-closed Studio 4, which operated between 2014 and 2017. Franco ultimately agreed to pay out $2.23 million as part of a settlement agreement.

At another point in the conversation, Franco admitted to having consensual sexual relationships with students of his Studio 4 acting and filmmaking school but said he now understands they were wrong. He continued, "I [was] completely blind to power dynamics or anything like that, but also completely blind to people's feelings."

Franco also opened up about his decision to not respond publicly to the allegations made against him when the story was first published, telling Cagle, "In 2018, there were some complaints about me and an article about me, and at that moment I just thought, I'm gonna be quiet. I'm gonna be — I'm gonna pause. [It] did not seem like the right time to say anything. There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen."

The actor further revealed he's "been doing a lot of work" since the accusations went public, explaining, "I was in recovery before for substance abuse, and there were some issues that I had to deal with that were also related to addiction. So I've really used my recovery background to kind of start examining this and changing who I was."

If you are a U.S.-based victim of sexual assault or misconduct in need of help, contact RAINN at 800-656-4673

to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. If you are based outside the U.S., click here for a list of international sexual assault resources.

Source: YouTube via The Hollywood Reporter