Seth Rogen Didn’t Notice When Alleged Predator James Franco Declared Their Friendship Over

James Franco says he was heartbroken when he realized that his friendship with Seth Rogen had fizzled out, but Rogen was too busy not spending time with guys who start acting schools just to sleep with teenagers to pay attention.

Millennial-and-older comedy fans will recall how, back in the late 2000s, Hollywood began a torrid love affair with the stoner comedy bromance between Franco and Rogen, who had both grown up to be bona-fide A-listers in their own rights a decade after co-starring in the cult-beloved comedy-drama series Freaks and Geeks. Between Pineapple Express, The Interview and This Is the End, the duo of Franco and Rogen put their star powers together to create comedy classics aimed directly at the sizable community of guys who look like Rogen (and smoke weed like him, too). 

However, since Rogen and Franco appeared in the Franco-directed and little-viewed dramedy film Zeroville in 2019, there has, apparently, been radio silence between the former funniest duo in the Judd-Apatow-adjacent comedy community. While Franco lamented the end of his personal and professional relationship with Rogen in an interview with Variety back in October, Rogen recently admitted that Franco’s public complaints about their personal relationship weirded him out, and he has avoided the issue as much as he could.

NYU students would be wise to follow Rogen’s example and avoid Franco both privately and publicly.

Back in October, Franco made some personal confessions in an interview with Variety, saying of his previously productive relationship with Rogen, “I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over. And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me.”

Then, in a cover story for Esquire published earlier this week, Rogen reportedly grew uncomfortable with questions about Franco’s recent comments indicating that their friendship had ended, saying of Franco’s claims that made headlines back in October, “Honestly, I absorb so little media that it really wasn’t on my radar.” 

Now, it doesn’t take 127 hours to learn why exactly Rogen and Franco don’t hang out anymore either on set or in private. Although the “Sexual Misconduct Accusations and Lawsuit” section of Franco’s Wikipedia page is lengthy, it’s not quite as long a read as the sexual harassment and fraud complaint that two students of Franco’s defunct acting school filed after he allegedly ran the business as a backroom casting couch, attempting to trade parts in his projects for sexual favors. Franco’s rap sheet of creepiness starts in 2014 when the actor, then 35 years old, admitted to repeatedly attempting to convince a 17-year-old girl from the internet to visit him at his hotel room, and it doesn’t get better from there. 

Suffice it to say that, in his personal, professional and academic lives, the actor-director-professor Franco has established a staggering pattern of nonconsensual and sexually coercive behavior toward women. And, in 2021, after seven years of Franco’s ex-girlfriends, former students and co-stars publicly accusing the artist of sexually predatory behavior, Rogen finally had enough. In a confessional interview with The Times of London, Rogen stated that he would no longer work with Franco, admitting that the allegations had also impacted the pair’s personal relationship.

Sadly for Franco, there are only so many public, corroborated and credible sexual misconduct allegations a bro can tolerate before he cuts another bro off — and, in Rogen’s case, that figure is roughly seven years’ worth of sex offenses.