James Franco says he's a sex addict and had consensual sex with his students: 'I let a lot of people down'

• James Franco has given his first interview since the 2018 sexual misconduct allegations against him.
• He told journalist Jess Cagle that he has a sex addiction.

James Franco is speaking out for the first time in four years, revealing that he has a sex addiction and slept with students who attended his now-defunct film school, Studio 4.

"I cheated. I cheated on everyone," Franco said in an interview on SiriusXM's "The Jess Cagle Podcast," which airs Thursday, noting that he has been loyal to his current girlfriend, actress Isabel Pakzad, who he's been seeing since November 2017.

Franco, who also said during the interview that he's a recovering alcoholic, told Cagle that he still speaks to a sponsor who was concerned about his cheating.

"He's like, 'Look, the cheating is dishonest. I don't think that's good for your sobriety, but if you're not dating someone and you wanna go and hook up, like, whatever happens between two consenting adults is fine,'" Franco recalled his sponsor telling him.

"The problem was, I took that and I ran with it and used it as an excuse to hook up all over the place," Franco continued. "The behavior spun out to a point where it was like I was hurting everybody."

Franco said it was 'wrong' to sleep with his film students

In his wide-ranging interview, Franco also said he had consensual sex with students at his film school, Studio 4, that shut down in 2017.

"Look, I'll admit I did sleep with students," Franco said, though he didn't say how many students.

Tuition was $300 a month, but there were additional master classes offered that could cost up to $2,000. One of those masterclasses was marketed as focusing on crafting sex scenes and cost $740.

"I didn't sleep with anybody in that particular class," Franco added. "But, over the course of my teaching, I did sleep with students and that was wrong."

Franco told Cagle that he should have never titled the class "sex scenes" because that was not what was being taught.

"The stupidest thing I did, or one of the stupidest things I did at the school, was I called one of my classes, a masterclass 'Sex Scenes,'" he told Cagle. "It was not about sex scenes. I was not teaching people how to do sex scenes or intimate scenes or anything of that nature. It was a provocative title."

"It should have been called, you know, Contemporary Romance or something like that," Franco continued. "It was a class where they did scenes about whatever their romance is, you know, what they go through as young people. Meeting people on dating apps or breakups, just a bad date, stuff like that. That's what was being done in that class. It was not sex scenes."

Franco disputes that he was trying to create a 'pipeline' of young women with his film school

In June, he agreed to pay $2,235,000 to settle a lawsuit in which he and his business partners were accused of pushing students at Studio 4 to perform explicit sex scenes on camera.

"Although Defendants contend they are not liable for any of the claims alleged, they have agreed to settle in the manner and upon the terms of the proposed Settlement Agreement," the filing said.

Cagle pointed out to Franco that in the lawsuit one of the plaintiff's attorneys said, "James Franco was looking to create a pipeline of young women who would be subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education."

Franco disputed that.

"It's not why I started the school and I wasn't the person that selected the people to be in the class," he said. "So it wasn't a master plan on my part. But yes, there were certain instances where, you know what I was in a consensual thing with, with a student and I shouldn't have been."

Looking back on teaching classes — while at the same time hosting the Oscars in 2011 and acting in movies — he's not proud of his actions.

"I let a lot of people down," he said. "I let my students down, I let the, I hosted the Oscars. I let them down. I let my coworkers down on my movies."

Franco was accused of inappropriate behavior in 2018

In a 2018 Los Angeles Times story, five women — four of them students of Franco's — alleged that the actor put them in uncomfortable situations.

Franco taught Hilary Dusome and Natalie Chmiel at Playhouse West in 2012. Dusome told the Times that Franco selected her and other women to appear in an "art film." Chmiel said that Franco told her the footage would be used for a 7 For All Mankind jeans advertisement.

Both women described an "unprofessional and hostile shoot at a strip club," according to the Times.

"Midway through filming, Dusome said Franco approached the actresses — who wore masks and lingerie — and asked, 'So, who wants to take your shirt off?' When no actresses volunteered, Franco stormed off, Dusome recalled," Times reports Daniel Miller and Amy Kaufman describe in their story.

The Times also chronicled an incident at Studio 4, which Franco launched in 2014.

Katie Ryan told the paper that Franco "would always make everybody think there were possible roles on the table if we were to perform sexual acts or take off our shirts." For years, Ryan said that she was part of mass email blasts from Franco about auditions for roles as "a prostitute or a hooker."

Franco denied the allegations at the time. The actor did not respond to Insider's request for comment on his interview with Cagle.