14 DAY TRIAL // Rumors that James Franco is gay have been around for many years. More recently, they were fuelled by the actor himself who even said that he liked not setting the record straight because it kept audiences on their toes, thus allowing him more room to lose himself as a person / celebrity and evolve as an artist.
Playing gay characters has also helped to keep the rumors going, as also did the fact that Franco, as much as he likes attention and does whatever he can on social media to get it, was rarely seen with a woman in public, displaying signs of affection that might indicate an amorous relationship.
In the March 2015 issue of Four Two Nine, a quarterly magazine of arts and culture, James Franco interviews himself, playing two characters: Straight James and Gay James. Yes, he is quite the artiste!
They talk about work, social media and the celebrity game, and they also discuss the rumor that Franco’s gay. Gay James comes out: “Well, I like to think that I'm gay in my art and straight in my life. Although, I'm also gay in my life up to the point of intercourse, and then you could say I'm straight.”
According to James Franco, he’s gay but only depending on what you understand by this term. He offers the example of sailors a long way back, who would sleep with other men but wouldn’t be considered gay if they acted in a manly manner.
Back then, he says, being gay was more about public behavior and not necessarily about who you slept with.
In other words, James Franco is still refusing to have the world put a label on him, so he will continue to encourage the rumor that he’s gay because it serves him as an artist. In the end, it doesn’t even matter what he does in his personal life, as long as he delivers as an artist and entertainer, does it?