As the internet blew up with reports that James Franco hit on a 17-year-old tourist from Scotland via Instagram this week, the 35-year-old actor took it upon himself to address the subject on “Live with Kelly and Michael” Friday morning.
“I was just feeling awkward,” he said of his reason for bringing up the topic. “I guess, you know, I’m embarrassed,” he told Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan, “and I guess I’m just a model of how social media’s tricky.”
Franco went on to say that he’s new to social media and he’s learning that “you don’t know who’s on the other end.”
“I used bad judgement and I learned my lesson,” he said.
But is the “Of Mice and Men” actor just lonely, or was this an attempt at research for his upcoming movie, “Palo Alto,” in which he plays a soccer coach romantically involved with a teenage athlete?
It seems like the former.
“Not only do I have to go through the embarrassing rituals of meeting someone… sometimes if I do that then it gets published for the world, so now, you know, it’s like double embarrassing,” he said.
“It happens to everybody, and it happens to movie stars on a much grander scale,” Ripa said, quipping, “I promise I will not reveal our text messages.”
