James Franco Says His Longtime Friendship with Seth Rogen Is ‘Over’ After His Controversies

James Franco believes his longtime friendship with Seth Rogen has run its course.

While speaking with Variety at the Rome Film Festival about his new movie Hey Joe — Franco’s second film to release since 2019, after he was accused of sexually inappropriate behavior by five women, four of whom were his acting students, in a 2018 Los Angeles Times article — the actor and filmmaker said he and Rogen, 42, are not in touch these days.

“I haven’t talked to Seth. I love Seth, we had 20 great years together, but I guess it’s over,” Franco said of his relationship with his frequent collaborator on projects like Freaks and Geeks, Pineapple Express, This Is The End and The Disaster Artist.

“And not for lack of trying. I’ve told him how much he’s meant to me,” Franco added.

Franco’s career stalled after two of those former acting students filed a sexual misconduct lawsuit in 2019. Franco settled the lawsuit in 2021, and records PEOPLE obtained at the time showed that he agreed to pay $2.235 million in the settlement. 

“While Defendants continue to deny the allegations in the Complaint, they acknowledge that Plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the mistreatment of women in Hollywood,” both parties said in a joint statement released in 2021.

That same year, Rogen said in an interview that he had no plans to work with Franco moving forward.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

“I’m so grateful to be working. I did go through a lawsuit, and during that lawsuit I wasn’t working. But then COVID hit so everybody wasn’t working. So, I don’t know, it was all… I mean, we were all kind of in it. So it was sort of like, ‘I don’t know what I am,'” Franco told Variety, while speaking to his hiatus from Hollywood.

“But I did certainly use the time to, I hope, good purpose. And whatever had been going on with me before, I had to change my whole way of life. So I am proud of the kind of work I did during that time. And yeah, I wasn’t working in movies, but I certainly was doing a lot of work to change who I was.”

“Being told you’re bad is painful,” he added elsewhere in the piece. “But ultimately, that’s kind of what I needed to just stop going the way I was going.”

As Franco begins to resume his film career — Variety noted at least three additional projects he has in the works — the actor recalled that he “didn’t really have a personal life” in the past, while speaking to a workaholic attitude prior to that lawsuit.

“I had friends, but it was always sort of enmeshed with my work,” he said. “And so, yeah, I put a lot of time into my personal life. I’ve had a relationship for seven-and-a-half years [with actress and filmmaker Izabel Pakzad]. I was never able to do that before. I was just too scared, really … to have any sort of real intimacy with anyone.”