14 DAY TRIAL // So then it wasn't a publicity stunt? Actor James Franco was busted earlier this week trying to hit on an underage girl on Instagram and somehow, the whole conversation was leaked to the press, landing him in a PR mess.
On a scheduled appearance on the TV talk show Live! With Kelly and Michael, Franco admitted that he was so ashamed of this scandal that he had second thoughts about doing the show. “I was feeling awkward -- I didn't want to come on the show and just feel awkward,” says Franco quoted by Us Magazine.
“I'm embarrassed, and I guess I'm just a model of how social media is tricky. It's the way that people meet each other today, but what I've learned -- I guess because I'm new to it -- is you don't know who's on the other end,” added the 35-year-old actor.
He continued with an apology and an explanation for his behavior, “You get a feel for them, you don't know who you're talking to. I used bad judgment and I learned my lesson.” That still doesn't prove that Franco wasn't pulling a fast one on the media.
Skeptics believe that Franco has staged all of this up, as a means of promoting his latest movie “Palo Alto,” in which he plays a football coach that ends up seducing his 14-year-old babysitter. The coincidence is just too obvious say people, for this scandal to pop up right before the movie is due to hit theaters.
If you haven't been following the news, James, known for his roles in movies such as “127 Hours,” got into a conversation with a young girl who turned out to be underage, after she posted a video on Instagram with her and the actor in a dark cap, signing autographs for fans.
The actor stumbled on the video and, intrigued, proceeded to chat with the girl up on Instagram. After firing two consecutive barrages of questions, he determined that the girl was Scottish, on a vacation in New York with her mother and staying at a local hotel.
It didn't take long from here for Franco to bluntly get to the point and asking her what hotel she was staying at and should he book a room there. He met with incredulity from the girl, who had trouble believing that she was really chatting with the Hollywood actor, so Franco sent her a photo of him waving at the camera.
He finally backed down out of the whole deal at the last moment when he learned that the girl was 17 and her birthday wasn't until May. The blond Scottish girl did look mature for her age and that could have fooled Franco who seemed excited when she confessed that she didn't have a boyfriend.
The remorseful actor concluded his argument on the TV show by saying, “Unfortunately in my position, not only do I have to go through the embarrassing rituals of meeting someone, but if I do that, then it gets published for the world so it's doubly embarrassing.”