Victoria’s Secret models backstage at the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. (Photo by Heidi Gutman/ABC)
More than 100 models and several of their allies (including Models Alliance and Times Up) have signed an open letter to Victoria’s Secret CEO John Mehas to demand an end to the sexual abuse and sexual harassment that has allegedly been running rampant against Victoria’s Secret models.
The letter reads, in part: “In the past few weeks, we have heard numerous allegations of sexual assault, alleged rape, and sex trafficking of models and aspiring models. While these allegations may not have been aimed at Victoria’s Secret directly, it is clear that your company has a crucial role to play in remedying the situation. From the headlines about L Brands CEO Leslie Wexner’s close friend and associate, Jeffrey Epstein, to the allegations of sexual misconduct by photographers Timur Emek, David Bellemere, and Greg Kadel, it is deeply disturbing that these men appear to have leveraged their working relationships with Victoria’s Secret to lure and abuse vulnerable girls.”
Most of the models who signed the open letter are not very well-known in the industry or are well-known models who are over the age of 30, such as Milla Jovovich, Emme, Doutzen Kroes, and Carolyn Murphy. Noticeably absent from the letter are supermodels who’ve been steadily employed by Victoria’s Secret in recent years, such as Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Behati Prinsloo, Jasmine Tookes, Barbara Palvin and Taylor Hill. Adriana Lima, who retired from Victoria’s Secret runway shows in 2018, was also not on the list of people who signed the letter.
L Brands (based in Columbus, Ohio) is the parent company of Victoria’s Secret. The letter was published just two days after L Brands chief marketing officer Ed Razek publicly announced he was leaving the company. Wexner and Razek had close ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested again in July 2019, for sex crimes, specifically, for sex trafficking of women and underage girls.
Razek came under fire in 2018, when he said in a Vogue interview that Victoria’s Secret was not interested in hiring plus-sized or transgender models. In August 2019, Victoria’s Secret hired its first transgender model: Valentina Sampaio, who posted the news on her Instagram account.
The open letter blasting Victoria’s Secret is the latest blow to the company, which officially canceled the 2019 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show only a few months after it was announced that the show would not be televised anymore. Victoria’s Secret and its Pink spinoff brand have also been experiencing a sharp decline in sales in recent years.
August 10, 2019 UPDATE: Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019. According to the Associated Press, he died in the morning of an apparent suicide by hanging. The Associated Press also reports that although Epstein, who was 66, had been on suicide watch in the weeks leading up to his death, he was not on suicide watch at the time he was found dead. He had been denied bail while waiting to be put on trial on charges of sex-trafficking of underage girls. Of course, Epstein’s sudden death has fueled conspiracy theories that he might have been murdered to prevent him from exposing who his rich and powerful clients were in the sex crimes that Epstein was accused of committing.
For the second time in his life, disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly, 52, is facing criminal charges for sex crimes. On February 22, 2019, the Cook County district attorney’s office in Illinois announced that Kelly has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four victims in incidents that took place between 1998 and 2010. According to the Associated Press, three of the alleged victims were minors at the time the alleged abuse occurred. Kelly (whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly) is expected to appear at a bond hearing on February 23, and he will have his first court date on March 8. Kelly’s hometown is Chicago, but he has been living mainly in the Atlanta area for the past several years.
Kelly was arrested for multiple counts of child pornography in 2002. At the center of the trial was a videotape made in 2001 which prosecutors said showed Kelly having sex with a then-14-year-old girl, who was the daughter of one of Kelly’s band members. Kelly, who denied all the charges and said he wasn’t the man in the video, didn’t go on trial until 2008, and he was acquitted of all charges. The female in the sex video refused to testify in the trial, and some of the jurors later said in interviews that they could not convict Kelly without her testimony.
Kelly has admitted to settling numerous lawsuits over the years in which he was accused of sexual abuse, but he has always denied all claims of sexual abuse against him. The Grammy-winning Kelly is best known for his hits “I Believe I Can Fly,” “Bump N’ Grind” and “Step in the Name of Love.”
Although Kelly seemingly survived the scandal in the years since the trial, the #MeToo and Times Up movements re-ignited protests against Kelly. A grass-roots movement called #MuteRKelly was formed in 2018, and was successful in getting several of Kelly’s concerts canceled and his music banned from some radio stations and streaming services. #MuteRKelly also spearheaded the pressure against Sony Music to cut ties with Kelly.
But the tipping point in the tide against Kelly was the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” which aired in January 2019. “Surviving R. Kelly” had interviews with more than 25 people (including his ex-wife Andrea) who either claimed to be victims of harrowing sexual abuse, were related to victims, or were former associates who saw the alleged abuse firsthand. The miniseries reiterated accusations that Kelly is a serial rapist/abuser whose known crimes go as far back as the 1990s, he has an obsession with underage girls, and he is currently abusing women in a “sex cult” environment. After “Surviving R. Kelly” aired and multiple groups staged protests outside of Sony Music’s offices, Sony Music dropped R. Kelly and made it public on January 18, 2019.
UPDATE: Kelly surrendered to authorities in Chicago on February 22, 2019 and pleaded not guilty. He was arrested again on March 6, 2019, for not paying $161,000 in child support to his ex-wife Andrea. Kelly was released on bail after an anonymous donor paid his child support and his bond. Before his arrest for not paying child support, Kelly gave an emotionally unhinged and paranoid interview with CBS News’ Gayle King, in which he shouted that he was innocent of all allegations, and he angrily stated he was the target of a conspiracy.
JULY 16, 2019 UPDATE: R. Kelly was arrested again for an additional 18 counts, including federal sex-trafficking charges, on July 12, 2019. At a court hearing in Chicago on July 16, 2019, he pleaded not guilty and was ordered to be held without bond.
After facing immense public backlash, Sony Music has dropped Grammy-winning R&B singer R. Kelly, who has been accused of committing sexual abuse against women and underage girls as far back as the 1990s but has not yet been convicted of any such crimes. Kelly has repeatedly denied all allegations against him. According to Variety, Sony Music had been trying to sever ties with Kelly for several weeks, and made it official on January 18, 2019, when the company removed Kelly from its website. Sony has not yet issued a statement about dropping Kelly or the controversy over Kelly. Sony Music is the parent company of RCA Records, Kelly’s longtime record company. Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was previously signed to Jive Records, which Sony shuttered in 2011. Jive’s former artists transferred to RCA. Although Kelly will not be releasing new music with RCA/Sony, his back catalog will remain with the record company. His last album with RCA/Sony was “12 Nights of Christmas,” which was released in 2016.
Meanwhile, Henry James Mason, a former manager of R. Kelly, turned himself into authorities on January 18 in Henry County, Georgia, for charges of threatening to kill Timothy Savage, the father of one of Kelly’s alleged victims, as well as threatening to harm members of the Savage family. Mason, who had a warrant out of his arrest since July 2018, has been released on $10,000 bail, according to Variety.
Timothy and JonJelyn Savage in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Over the years, Kelly, who is 52, has been the subject of numerous stories of abuse against females, particularly underage girls. In 2008, he was acquitted of child pornography charges in which he was accused of videotaping himself having sex with and urinating on a then-14-year-old girl in 2001. Kelly was arrested for the crime in 2002, after the video was leaked to the public and widely bootlegged. The girl who was identified in the video refused to testify in the trial and denied that she was in the video. Complicating matters, the girl’s father worked for R. Kelly as a guitarist in his band before and after the trial. There were several people who knew the girl who testified at the trial, and most of them said that she was the girl in the video. (Her parents did not testify at the trial.) According to what a few of the jurors later told the media after the trial, the lack of testimony from the alleged victim was the main reason why they came to a “not guilty” verdict.
In 1994, Kelly had an illegal marriage to singer Aaliyah, who was 15 at the time they eloped, but who allegedly lied about her age (saying she was 18) at the time of the marriage ceremony. The marriage, which is on public record, was later annulled in 1995.
Sparkle, a former R. Kelly protégée, in “Surviving R. Kelly.” She says her niece was the underage girl in R. Kelly’s notorious sex video that got him arrested for child pornography in 2002. (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
In 2017, BuzzFeed reported allegations from numerous people who said that Kelly had brainwashed women into becoming his sex slaves and is controlling them like a cult leader. Later that year, when the #MeToo movement became a major social force, a #MuteRKelly activist group was formed to urge cancellations and boycotting of all things related to R. Kelly. #MuteRKelly has been successful in getting several R. Kelly concerts cancelled. The #MuteRKelly movement led to the BBC Three network in the United Kingdom to do two news investigative specials on R. Kelly in 2018. The parents of the alleged victims who are still living with Kelly, as well as women who used to be sexually involved with Kelly, have also given numerous other media interviews.
However, the most influential tipping point in getting Sony Music to drop R. Kelly seems to be the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” which aired from January 3 to January 5, 2019, and included harrowing interviews with numerous women, such as his ex-wife Andrea, who say that R. Kelly physically, sexually and emotionally abused them. Most of the women were under the age of 18 when they began their sexual relationships with R. Kelly, and many of them were also interviewed in the BBC Three specials. The women who lived with Kelly said that he was so abusive that he would often starve them, beat them, and force them to engage in degrading sexual acts. Almost all of the women who were in long-term sexual relationships with Kelly said that he would isolate them from their family and friends, and they were afraid to leave him because he threatened their lives. They also said that he had so much control over them that he dictated when they could eat, use the bathroom, and talk to other people.
Carey Kelly in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Bruce Kelly in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Andrea Kelly in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
“Surviving R. Kelly” also included interviews with R. Kelly’s brothers Carey (who spoke out against him) and Bruce Kelly (who is supportive of R. Kelly and is currently in prison for theft and other charges) and R. Kelly’s former protégée Sparkle, who says her underage niece was in the infamous R. Kelly sex video. Other people who were interviewed included several former business associates (who all confirmed that R. Kelly had sexual relationships with underage girls) and some of the parents who claim that their daughters have been Kelly’s sex slaves. The parents say that because their daughters are adults and have apparently been forced to deny that Kelly abused them, it has been difficult to get authorities to intervene and rescue their daughters. However, “Surviving R. Kelly” did document how Michelle Kramer, one of the mothers of the alleged victims, was able to successfully get her daughter out of R. Kelly’s life.
According to Lifetime, “Surviving R. Kelly” had 1.9 million total viewers, making it Lifetime’s highest-rated new show in two years and highest-rated new unscripted show in three years. “Surviving R. Kelly” was executive produced by dream hampton, Tamara Simmons, Joel Karlsberg and Jesse Daniels for Kreativ Inc. which has a production deal with Bunim/Murray Productions (BMP). Brie Miranda Bryant from Lifetime is also one of the executive producers.
R. Kelly Accusers in “Surviving R. Kelly”
Lisette Martinez in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Lisa VanAllen in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Asante McGee in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Faith Rodgers in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Jerhonda Pace in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
Kitti Jones in “Surviving R. Kelly” (Photo courtesy of Lifetime)
In the wake of “Surviving R. Kelly” and the public outcry for justice to be served, artists such as Lady Gaga and Chance the Rapper removed their collaborations with R. Kelly from streaming and online retail sites, made public apologies for associating with R. Kelly, and voiced their support for the survivors. In addition to having numerous hits as a solo artist (including “I Believe I Can Fly” and “Bump ‘N Grind”), Kelly wrote and/or produced hits for several major stars, including Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Jay-Z. Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in 2001, started out as one of Kelly’s protégées, but parted ways with him after her first album and their marriage debacle.
Longtime TV executive Les Moonves, 68, has exited his position as CBS Corp. chairman/CEO in a cloud of scandal, after The New Yorker published allegations from six women who claimed that he sexually assaulted them by violently forcing them to give him oral sex or sexually harassed them by ruining their careers after they refused his sexual advances. Moonves abruptly resigned after the story was published on September 9, 2018.
The allegations came after six other women accused him of the same misdeeds in the same time period (1980s to early 2000s) in a New Yorker article published in July. At the time, Moonves admitted that he made sexual advances to some of the women, but denied that he forced himself on anyone or retaliated if they refused his advances. The CBS board then voted to keep Moonves in his job while CBS would investigate the allegations. However, the additional number of accusers and the detailed stories that surfaced two months later were apparently too much, and Moonves (who was reportedly negotiating his exit package after the first wave of accusations were made public) stepped down and released this statement:
“For the past 24 years it has been an incredible privilege to lead CBS’s renaissance and transformation into a leading global media company. The best part of this journey has been working alongside the dedicated and talented people in this company. Together, we built CBS into a destination where the best in the business come to work and succeed. Untrue allegations from decades ago are now being made against me that are not consistent with who I am. Effective immediately I will no longer be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CBS. I am deeply saddened to be leaving the company. I wish nothing but the best for the organization, the newly comprised board of directors and all of its employees.”
Les Moonves at the CBS Upfronts in New York City in 2017 (Photo by Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS)
CBS announced that it would donate $20 million of Moonves’ salary to the Time’s Up movement that is aimed at assisting victims of sexual harassment and assault. However, when it was reported that the $20 million would be deducted from an approximate $100 million severance package that Moonves was reportedly getting, it sparked outrage on social media from people who think Moonves should not be receiving any severance pay. More outrage ensued when CBS said it would not release the outcome of the investigation conducted by two law firms hired by CBS to look into the accusations against Moonves.
The irony is that in December 2017, Moonves co-founded the Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, which is chaired by Anita Hill.
Julie Chen, Moonves’ second wife whom he married in 2004 after a messy divorce from first wife Nancy, issued a statement after the accusations surfaced in July by saying that her husband was a “moral” man and that she stood by him. Chen and Moonves got romantically involved and openly dated while he was married to his first wife.
Chen, 48, is a co-host of CBS daytime talk show “The Talk” and the host of CBS reality show “Big Brother.” She was absent from “The Talk” on September 10, issuing that statement that she was taking time off to spend with her family. Chen and Moonves’ son Charlie was born in 2009. Moonves has three adult children from his first marriage.
Now that her husband has left his powerful position at CBS under scandalous circumstances, it might be a matter of time before Chen will leave CBS, regardless if the marriage ends in divorce or not. Chen’s career was so inextricably tied to Moonves and his position of power that it might be difficult for her to find work on a similar level at another network.
September 18, 2018 UPDATE: As expected, Chen did not return to “The Talk,” and officially resigned from the show in a videotaped message that aired on the show on September 18. In the message, Chen said that she was leaving “The Talk” to spend time with her husband and their son Charlie. She briefly got tearful during her statement, and she thanked her co-hosts and the rest of “The Talk” team for the time that she spent with them. Chen had been a co-host of “The Talk” since its 2010 debut. The search is on to find the person who will replace Chen on the show. “Dancing With the Stars” judge Carrie Ann Inaba, who has been filling in as a substitute, is considered a frontrunner for the job. Meanwhile, Chen will probably exit CBS once her contract ends as host of “Big Brother.”
Harvey Weinstein at The Weinstein Company party in celebration of “Wind River” at Nikki Beach in Cannes, Frances, on May 20, 2017. (Photo by Dave Benett)
On May 25, 2018, disgraced entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein turned himself into the New York Police Department, where he was arrested and charged with rape and forced oral sex. According to the Associated Press, the rape charge is for an unidentified woman who claims that Weinstein raped her at a New York hotel room in 2013. The oral sex charge is for a 2004 incident in which former aspiring actress Lucia Evans claims that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him at his New York office. During his arraignment, he pled not guilty and was released on $1 million bail, with constant electronic monitoring and a ban on traveling beyond New York and Connecticut. Weinstein’s attorney Benjamin Brafman says that Weinstein will seek to have the charges dismissed.
In October 2017, the New York Times and the New Yorker reported that Weinstein has a long history of sexual misconduct allegations (going back as far as the 1980s), and that he silenced many of his alleged victims with financial settlements and non-disclosure agreements. In the months since those reports were published, more than 80 women have come forward to claim that Weinstein sexually harassed or sexually assaulted them. Weinstein has denied all the allegations, and says any sex acts he committed were consensual.
After the reports were published, Weinstein was fired by The Weinstein Company (the entertainment firm that Harvey co-founded with his brother Bob); Harvey’s second wife, Georgina Chapman, divorced him; and the company filed for bankruptcy. The Weinstein Company has since been purchased by an investment group and is expected to change its name. Several industry organizations (including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) have expelled Harvey Weinstein from their membership, and he has been sued by several women for sexual harassment/sexual misconduct. Ashley Judd, one of his accusers, is also suing him for defamation because she claims Harvey Weinstein damaged her reputation and career after she rejected his sexual advances.
Harvey Weinstein’s downfall is widely considered to be the turning point of the #MeToo cultural movement, which has survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault publicly telling their stories and seeking justice. The #MeToo movement has also led to sexual misconduct allegations against many other famous and powerful men, often resulting in the accused losing their jobs and/or being sued.
October 11, 2018 UPDATE: The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has dismissed the sexual assault charge against Weinstein in the Evans case. According to CNN, Evans’ attorney Carrie Goldberg implied that the charge was dropped for political reasons because of a “feud between the NYPD and the DA’s office.” Goldberg added that the dropped charge “does speak to a system desperate in need of reform.” Weinstein still faces five charges for sex-related crimes.
James Franco in W’s August 2017 issue (Photo by Alasdair McLellan)
James Franco is on a long and growing list of famous and influential men accused of sexual misconduct. In a Los Angeles Times article published on January 11, 2018, five women came forward to report that Franco abused his power by pressuring them to get naked and/or perform sexual acts. Franco, 39, is a highly educated actor, filmmaker, TV producer, poet, painter and teacher, with post-graduate degrees from several schools, including New York University, Columbia University and the Rhode Island School of Design. He described the sexual misconduct claims against him as “not accurate” in separate interviews on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (on January 9) and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (on January 10). In the interview with Colbert, Franco said he would refrain from telling his side of the story because he believes in the movement for “under-represented” alleged harassment and abuse victims to tell their stories.
The controversy began during the 2018 Golden Globe Awards ceremony on January 7, when Franco wore black and a Time’s Up pin to show his support for the Time’s Up movement and legal defense fund, which are aimed at helping victims of sexism and sexual misconduct. At the Golden Globes, Franco won the award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical, for his starring role in “The Disaster Artist,” a movie he also directed.
Tommy Wiseau, James Franco, and Dave Franco with award presenters Shirley MacLaine and Emma Stone at the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on January 7, 2018. (Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
During the award show, several people (including actress Ally Sheedy, whom he directed in the 2014 off-Broadway play “The Long Shrift”) went on Twitter and other social media to express their outrage at Franco, and accused him of being someone who committed sexual misconduct against women. Sheedy’s comments (which were later taken down) hinted that she left the entertainment business because of Franco. She has not publicly elaborated on went wrong with Franco to cause her to make those statements.
In his interviews with Colbert and Seth Meyers, Franco said that he had a “great time” working with Sheedy, and claimed to have no idea why she is upset with him. When Meyers asked Franco if he had contacted Sheedy to find out why she posted those tweets, Franco said he did not contact her and wanted to let the matter be. In the interview with Colbert, Franco said that he wanted to “fix” any problems he may have caused with anyone accusing him of mistreatment. Some of Franco’s accusers told the Los Angeles Times that Franco had contacted them by phone to make awkward apologies.
Most of the sexual misconduct that Franco is accused of committing has to do with his role as a teacher or mentor for Playhouse West (where Franco was previously a student) and his now-defunct acting school Studio 4, which he co-founded in 2014. Studio 4, which had locations in Los Angeles and New York, abruptly closed in late September 2017, not long before the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke.
The Los Angeles Times reported that although several of Franco’s former students said that Franco was a helpful teacher and it was a positive experience for them, four of the five women (Sarah Tither-Kaplan, Hilary Dusome, Natalie Chmiel, Katie Ryan) who told their stories to the Los Angeles Times said they had negative experiences with Franco. The four women are former Playhouse West or Studio 4 students who described Franco as someone who frequently pressured young women to get naked and sometimes do sex scenes for student acting projects, with the implied promise that they would get roles in Franco’s movies if they complied with the demands.
The women said that Franco would make an excessive amount of requests for his female students to portray roles as strippers or prostitutes. And on at least one occasion, he got very angry and stormed off when none of the female students volunteered to go topless to film a scene in a student project. One of the classes that Franco taught at Studio 4 was about how to film sex scenes. While filming an orgy scene with several women for a student project, Franco allegedly removed the required plastic covering over their vaginas, and simulated oral sex on them. He and Studio 4 were also accused of uploading women’s nude scenes on the Internet without their consent. Franco’s attorneys have denied those allegations.
Tither-Kaplan and Violet Paley (an aspiring filmmaker) were among the people who posted anti-Franco comments on Twitter during the Golden Globes ceremony. Paley told the Los Angeles Times that although she had a consensual affair with Franco in 2016, the relationship started off with him pressuring her to perform oral sex on him by pushing her head down toward his exposed penis while they were in a car. Because she also considered Franco to be her mentor, Paley said that “The power dynamic was really off.”
The Franco controversy led to the New York Times cancelling its TimesTalks “Disaster Artist” interview panel with Franco that would have taken place on January 10. It remains to be seen if Franco will have significant career damage due to the scandal.
Franco also taught classes at the University of Southern California, California Institute of the Arts, New York University, UCLA, Playhouse West and Palo Alto High School. Franco is an alum of the latter four schools. None of the schools has reported any sexual misconduct complaints about Franco. So far, HBO plans to move forward with the second season of “The Deuce,” a TV series about the 1970s rise of the porn industry in New York City. In addition to starring in “The Deuce,” Franco is also one of the show’s executive producers and directors. Representatives for “The Deuce” told the Los Angeles Times that they had not received any complaints about Franco from people involved with the show.
While opinions on the Internet seem to be divided over whether or not Franco is guilty of sexual misconduct, Franco’s famous friends such as Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow (who has been an actively vocal crusader against alleged sexual harassers) have neither publicly defended nor condemned Franco. Their public silence about Franco’s situation could be interpreted in different ways.
This isn’t the first time that Franco has been accused of acting inappropriately with a female. In 2014, he admitted to trying to get a 17-year-old fan named Lucy Clode to meet him for a tryst in a hotel room, even after she told him her age. The incident took place in New York, where the legal age of consent at the time was 17. Clode posted screen shots of the Instagram conversation that she had with Franco, who later went on the talk show “Live” to say he was embarrassed and sorry that the incident happened. Franco quit social media in 2017. He has since proclaimed in several interviews that social media is one of the non-substance-abuse “addictions” that he has worked to overcome in the past year.
James Franco in “The Disaster Artist” (Photo by Justina Mintz)
Aside from the possibility that Franco might lose business deals if the scandal gets worse, he is also faced with the humiliation of going from being an award-show darling to being an award-show outcast. Franco previously had a major award-show run for his Oscar-nominated role in the 2010 survival drama “127 Hours,” which garnered him some prizes, such as an Independent Spirit Award. “The Disaster Artist” was expected to be his next big shot at getting nominated for an Oscar. In “The Disaster Artist,” Franco plays Tommy Wiseau, the filmmaker behind the famously bad cult-classic movie “The Room.” Franco has won a Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Award and Gotham Independent Film Award for his role in the movie.
Nominations for the 2018 Annual Academy Awards will be announced on January 23. The voting to decide who will be nominated ends on January 12. Even if Franco’s name ends up on the nominees list, there seems to enough damage done to his reputation that major influencers might not want to associate with him at an award show or in future projects.
The distancing has apparently started. During the pre-telecast portion of the 2018 Critics’ Choice Awards on January 11, when Franco was announced as the winner of Best Actor in a Comedy, the room reportedly went silent before some people applauded hesitantly. Franco did not attend the ceremony. According to People, he is laying low, has cut off communication with most people in his inner circle, and appears to be showing signs of depression, a condition he has admitted to having in recent interviews.
Franco is nominated for Best Actor in a Motion Picture at the 2018 Screen Actors Guild Awards, which takes place in Los Angeles on January 21. (It’s the only SAG Award nomination for “The Disaster Artist.”) Most people are not expecting Franco to attend the show. And if he did, it’s highly unlikely that he will be doing interviews there. Several industry insiders have hinted on the Internet that Franco will be hit with more accusations, so the scandal is apparently going to have a long-lasting impact, and will serve as a cautionary tale in the Times Up movement.
January 21, 2018 UPDATE: Franco attended the 2018 Screen Actors Guild Awards. He did not win the prize he was nominated for, and he did not do interviews at the event.
January 25, 2018 UPDATE: Franco did not receive an Oscar nomination for “The Disaster Artist.” In addition, Vanity Fair announced that Franco was removed from the group photo on the cover of the magazine’s March 2018 “Oscar” issue because of the allegations against him.
October 3, 2019 UPDATE: Franco has been hit with a sexual-exploitation lawsuit by former students Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal. Variety’s report on the lawsuit has more detail.
