It’s been a hectic 72 hours in the life of James Franco.
On Sunday night, the celebrated actor/director/artsy weirdo won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of fellow actor/director/artsy weirdo Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist.
It was inarguably one of the biggest highlights of a career filled with critical acclaim and tremendous commercial success.
Within minutes of Franco’s acceptance speech, however, the 39-year-old was publicly accused of several incidents of sexual misconduct and brahypocriteoctrite for his ostensible support of the Time’s Up initiative.
Actress Ally Sheedy was the first to hint at abusive behavior on Franco’s part, posting a series of scathing tweets that have since been deleted.
“Why is James Franco allowed in? Said too much. Nite love ya,” she began.
“James Franco just won. Please never ask me why I left the film/tv business,” Sheedy wrote during Franco’s acceptance speech.
At one point, she implied that actor Christian Slater was also guilty of some sort of misconduct, tweeting:
“Ok wait. Bye. James Franco and Christian Slater at a table on @goldenglobes #MeToo”
Many stated that they were not surprised by Sheedy’s accusations.
Some called attention to Franco’s history of sexual misconduct.
(In 2014, the actor was accused of attempting to seduce a 17-year-old girl via Instagram.)
Others tweeted about appalling firsthand experiences with Franco.
“Cute #TIMESUP pin James Franco. 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?” tweeted a woman named Violet Paley, adding:
“After you had already been caught doing that to a different 17 year old?”
Paley later followed up by writing:
“A couple weeks ago, James offered me & a few other girls an overdue, annoyed, convenient phone ‘apology’. 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.”
Franco is already experiencing preliminary fallout from the accusations, as at least one promotional event for The Disaster Artist has been canceled.
Franco appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night, where he denied the allegations against him while at the same time expressing sympathy toward his accusers.
“I haven’t read [the accusations.] I’ve heard about them,” Franco said.
“The things that I heard that were on Twitter are not accurate but I completely support people coming out and being able to have a voice because they didn’t have a voice for so long. So I don’t want to … shut them down in any way.”
Asked about Sheedy’s allegations, Franco replied:
“I have no idea what I did to Ally Sheedy. I directed her in a play Off Broadway. I had nothing but a great time with her, total respect for her. I have no idea why she was upset
We’ll have further updates on this developing story as more information becomes available.