A New York Times event featuring James Franco, who won a best actor Golden Globe Sunday, has been canceled, two days after Franco was accused on social media of sexual misconduct.
The TimesTalk event planned for Wednesday in New York would have featured Franco, and his younger brother, Dave, who both starred in “The Disaster Artist,” the film that earned James his Globe.
“The event was intended to be a discussion of the making of the film, ‘The Disaster Artist.’ Given the controversy surrounding recent allegations, we’re no longer comfortable proceeding in that vein,” the New York Times said in an emailed statement to Variety.
Franco on Sunday followed the lead of many actors who wore pins pledging their support for the Time’s Up movement, a multi-pronged campaign to address sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The events at the Golden Globes, however, seemed to prompt a few women to accuse Franco on Twitter of inappropriate behavior.
Actress Violet Paley wrote on Twitter on Sunday: “Remember the time you pushed my head down in a car towards your exposed penis & that other time you told my friend to come to your hotel when she was 17? After you had already been caught doing that to a different 17 year old?”
On Tuesday, she wrote that Franco had called to offer an “an overdue, annoyed, convenient phone ‘apology.'”
She added: “I don’t accept, but maybe some other people’s lives would be made easier if he donated all of his earnings from ‘The Disaster Artist’ to @RAINN01,” a nonprofit group that supports survivors of sexual abuse.
Another woman, Sarah Tither-Kaplan, accused Franco of exploiting her in a film she made for him. “Remember a few weeks ago when you told me the full nudity you had me do in two of your movies for $100/day wasn’t exploitative because I signed a contract to do it? Times up on that!” she tweeted. “I 100% did not feel like I had a choice to say no.”
Tither-Kaplan was a former student of Franco.
Phone calls to Paley and representatives for Franco were also not immediately returned.
