James Franco appeared on The Howard Stern Show, where he insisted to Howard Stern that he isn’t consciously trying to pick up underage girls despite his recent Instagram exchange with a 17-year-old.

James Franco Not Pursuing Teenagers

In early April, screen shots of a flirty conversation between Franco and a 17-year-old girl, Lucy Clode, who met Franco outside of his Broadway play Of Mice and Men, went viral. In the text messages, Clode clearly states her age, and Franco still invites her to meet him at a hotel in New York City. After the messages went viral, Franco was forced to address the issue and publicly apologized on Live with Kelly and Michael, saying that he is just a man trying to navigate dating in the age of social media.

“I guess, you know, I’m embarassed, and I guess I’m just a model of, you know, how social media is tricky. It’s a way people meet each other today. But what I’ve learned I guess, just because I’m new to it is like, you don’t know who’s on the other end,” Franco said.

Franco addressed the issue again on air with Stern and was much more open about his frustration at the situation, particularly how he feels vilified by the media as a sort of online predator.

“They make it out like I’m pursuing young women. I’m not going to high schools looking for dates. I’m leaving my work and they’re coming there. So, I’m seeing attractive women. I saw her and she said on her page, ‘I love James Franco! Blahblahblah,’” Franco insisted.

Franco then went on to claim, once more, that he was not aware of Clode’s age at the time.

“I don’t know how old you are. I was a gentleman. I said, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ And her response was, ‘Not when you’re around.’ So that to me sounds like, okay, she’s interested,” Franco continued.

Franco also stood up for Clove and her decision to post their private messages online, saying, “[She’s] thinking not, ‘Here’s a guy hitting on me,’ she’s thinking, ‘Here’s an image I have of James Franco hitting on me. Oh, my god! My friends will never believe this!’… She’s just used to tweeting something to her friends and she’ll get like 20 likes and they’ll say, ‘Oh, I like your new dress,’ or whatever. When she put that on, obviously people pick up on it. She even took it down, but again it was too late,” Franco explained.

Franco also insisted that the incident was real and was not a publicity stunt for his new film Palo Alto.

James Franco Says He Did Not Have Sex With Lindsay Lohan

During his chat with Stern, Franco also addressed the rumors he had a brief fling with Lindsay Lohan. Franco denied ever having sex with the troubled starlet, but did admit to making out with her while they were both living at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood years ago.

“I don’t know what to say other than we were at this hotel during a very dark period of her history and I think she liked – it seemed pretty damn clear – that she liked me,” Franco told Stern.

“I guess you could say we were friends, although I hesitate to say that because every time I brought her back into my life, or tried to be nice, it just turned really lame and stupid,” Franco continued, claiming that Lohan was constantly pursuing a friendship with him.

According to Franco, Lohan broke into his hotel room one night during that time, telling Stern, “I was on the couch and I opened my eyes and there’s Lindsay in my room at 3 a.m. And, I was like, okay, what do I do now?” Franco said.

The incident has stuck in Franco’s mind so fiercely, he wrote a poem about it featured in his poetry book, Directing Herbert White.

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Article by Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Olivia Truffaut-Wong was born and raised in Berkeley, California, where she developed her love of all things entertainment. After moving to New York City to earn her degree in Film Studies, she stayed on the East Coast to follow her passion and become an entertainment writer. She lives on a diet of television, movies and food.