Seth Rogen is addressing James Franco publicly calling him out for ending their decades-long friendship.
The 42-year-old Mufasa star – who met Franco, 46, on 1999’s short-lived series Freaks And Geeks – was seemingly unfazed by his former friend letting the world in on their current standing.
“Honestly, I absorb so little media that it really wasn’t on my radar,” Rogen told Esquire in an interview published on Feb 11, but declined to say anything else about the falling out.
Oscar nominee Franco, who started facing allegations of sexual misconduct in 2018, told Variety late last year that he hadn’t spoken to Rogen in quite a while.
“I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over,” he said. “And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”
During their lengthy tenure on- and off-screen, Franco and Rogen worked together on several comedy hits including Pineapple Express, This Is The End and The Disaster Artist.
But a rift apparently began to form in 2018 after five women – including four of his acting students and one mentee – told the LA Times that Franco had behaved in a sexually exploitative or otherwise inappropriate manner. The report came on the heels of Franco donning a Time’s Up pin at the Golden Globes.
In February 2021, Franco settled a lawsuit that claimed he and his business partners founded the Studio 4 acting school to foster “a pipeline of young, impressionable women who were funneled to Franco and his ‘boys’ with the intent to exploit them financially and sexually.”
When asked how he felt about getting cancelled in Hollywood, Franco told Variety: “It is what it is.”
“I’ve honestly moved past it,” he said. “It was dealt with, and I got to change. So that’s it, it’s over. ... I’m just trying to move on.” – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
