James Franco Makes Rare Red Carpet Date With Girlfriend Izabel Pakzad

While James had avoided interviews during that time, he addressed the lawsuit in a 2021 interview on The Jess Cagle Show during which he admitted to sleeping with some of his past students, though he said the encounters had bene consensual.  

After largely being cast out of Hollywood at the time and in the years immediately following the controversy, James has since addressed his current place in the entertainment world.

“Being told you’re bad is painful,” he said to Variety in 2024. “But ultimately, that’s kind of what I needed to just stop going the way I was going.”

He also said the break in his acting work forced him to reconsider his priorities.

“I guess what I seek to fulfill me in life [is different],” he reflected. “Ultimately, I think I’m kind of grateful because it did afford me a chance to just do whatever private work and really change what I need to change.”

The controversy also shifted the way James thought about long-term relationships.

“I put a lot of time into my personal life,” he added, noting of his relationship with Izabel. “I’ve had a relationship for seven-and-a-half years. I was never able to do that before. I was just too scared, really, to have any sort of real intimacy with anyone.”

But these days, he and Izabel are enjoying time together out and about in the world—including Cannes, where they’ve appeared together for the last three years.

For more from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, read on.