LOS ANGELES • American actor James Franco has responded to allegations of sexual harassment by two former students by claiming they were an attempt to "jump on the (#MeToo) bandwagon" and played into "the media's insatiable appetite to ruin the next celebrity".

In a demurrer filed last Friday to the Los Angeles county superior court, Franco's lawyers asked that the lawsuit filed last October by Ms Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Ms Toni Gaal be dismissed, saying none of the alleged events detailed had happened and the statute of limitations had passed for the accusations.

Ms Tither-Kaplan and Ms Gaal have alleged that a now-defunct programme run by Franco's Studio 4 acting school had enabled the Oscar-nominated actor and his male collaborators to engage "in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behaviour towards female students by sexualising their power as a teacher and an employer by dangling the opportunity for roles in their projects".

In the demurrer, Franco's lawyers state: "The salacious allegations in the complaint have made great tabloid fodder, but like most tabloid stories, they are false and inflammatory, legally baseless and brought as a class action with the obvious goal of grabbing as much publicity as possible for attention-hungry plaintiffs."

The filing by Franco, 41, denies that actors were pressured to participate in nude scenes, saying that all performers had signed nudity waivers and no complaints were made at the time.

In 2018, he was accused of sexual misconduct by five women (including Ms Tither-Kaplan), which he denied, and was sharply criticised after wearing a Time's Up badge to the 2018 Golden Globes.

Franco, well-known for his role as Harry Osborn in director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002 to 2007), is described in the statement as "an ardent believer in the righteousness of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements".

THE GUARDIAN