You’re looking at a photo from The Artist formerly known as James Franco’s Instagram page. Franco has since deleted this image — perhaps because he’s realized that he could be in a heap of trouble. I don’t think there’s anything that will happen to him legally. What he’s (allegedly) done is skeevy though. He posted the image to deny a story about him perving on a 17-year-old Scottish girl (who was in NYC with her mom as a pre-18th birthday celebration). Franco is in town because he’s currently appearing in the Broadway production of Of Mice and Men.
Buzzfeed covered a series of anonymous images that were uploaded to Imgur. The images appeared to be screencaps of Franco engaging in direct messages with a 17-year-old female. He seemed very interested in hooking up with this girl. He kept asking whether or not she was 18. For what it’s worth, the age of consent in Scotland and in New York is 17 years. This is still creepy. Franco was using his celebrity status to woo the girl. He kept asking her if she was single and where she’d be staying in NYC. Then he progressed to “Should I rent a room“? Franco abruptly tried to end the conversation when the girl questioned his “dodgy” behavior. She thought he was messing with her as a joke.
An interesting detail: Franco’s Instagram page description used to include a disclaimer: “PLEASE DON’T DM IF YOU ARE UNDER 18.” The disclaimer has disappeared, but I’ve included a screencap. This conversation seemed authentic to me. There are so many details that give away how young this girl really is. Especially when Franco asked, “What’s your #?” The girl doesn’t know what “#” means because a 17-year-old girl would think he was talking about a hashtag.
This could all be some intricately plotted performance art on the part of Franco. I hate that we have to consider that possibility with everything he does. Franco’s starting to promote Palo Alto. He stars in the movie (which is based upon his own book, of course) as a teacher who beds his student. So yeah … this could be a publicity stunt. Or a belated April Fool’s joke. Or Franco could be using all of his own built-in excuses to perv on starstruck young girls.
Photos courtesy of Instagram & WENN