James Franco is 35 years old, which would make it quite illegal for him to have a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl. (It’s actually not illegal at all. The age of consent in New York is 17, so Franco did nothing illegal, just borderline creepy. Now we’re not so sure why this is even a thing. Sorry, James Franco!)
But that didn’t stop him from hitting on an underage girl over Instagram.
Lucy Clode, a 17-year-old from Scotland, was in New York City this week and attended a performance of Franco’s “Of Mice and Men” revival on Broadway. After the show, she took a photo of herself with Franco.
She tagged him in the photo after she uploaded it to Instagram, and he began direct-messaging her and texting her.
This is what went down (via The Daily Mail):
Franco then asked Clode her age and if she had a boyfriend.
The conversation moved from Instagram to text message, and there are clearly some parts of the conversation that have been omitted. Franco asked Clode if he could meet up with her and rent a hotel room, even after she told him that she was “nearly 18.”
Franco took a photo of himself to prove to Clode that it was really him, and asked her not to tell the story, Obviously, James Franco doesn’t know ANYTHING about teenage girls, because of course she is going to tell everyone she knows — and millions of people she doesn’t — that a movie star tried to get her into a hotel room.
Clode published the entire exchange online, which is VERY embarrassing, and borderline illegal, for Franco.
A very sheepish Franco appeared on “Live With Kelly and Michael” on Friday to apologize for his behavior and blame the entire thing on social media.
“I’m embarrassed, and I guess I’m just a model of how social media is tricky….I used bad judgment and I made a poor decision.”
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