HOLLYWOOD actor James Franco has admitted to being "embarrassed" after he was caught flirting with a Scots teenage girl online.
The 35-year-old bumped into Lucy Clode, from Dollar, while she was on holiday in New York and a series of messages exchanged by the pair on Instagram appeared to show him asking where the 17-year-old was staying and whether she had a boyfriend.
The conversation continued via text message, with the actor asking whether he should "rent a room".
In an interview on Live! With Kelly and Michael, Franco said he felt "awkward and embarrassed" about the encounter. "I guess I'm just a model of, you know, how social media is tricky," he said. "It's a way people meet each other today. But what I've learned, I guess just because I'm new to it, is like, you don't know who's on the other end.
"You meet somebody in person and you get a feel for them but you don't know who you're talking to, and, you know? So I used bad judgment. I learned my lesson."
Lucy, who attends Dollar Academy, was visiting New York with her mother as an early 18th birthday present. She met Franco outside his Broadway show Of Mice and Men and after she took a photograph of them together he asked her to tag him on Instagram.
Some have questioned whether the incident was a stunt to promote Franco's forthcoming film, in which he plays a teacher who starts a relationship with a teenage student.
But Franco appeared to dismiss the suggestion. "Unfortunately, in my position, I mean ... I have a very good life, but not only do I have to go through the embarrassing kind of rituals of kind of meeting someone, sometimes if I do that then it gets, you know, published for the world," he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article