Despite his presence on Lindsay Lohan‘s infamous sex list, James Franco denies that he ever slept with the starlet and penned a short story proclaiming his innocence.
“Bungalow 89” — a short story published in Vice’s fiction issue, which appeared online on Tuesday — tells the story of an actor/artist/poet named “James,” who has multiple awkward run-ins with a troubled young actress named “Lindsay Lohan,” while staying at Hollywood’s famed Chateau Marmont.
In the story full of name-drops, “Lindsay” — who first refers to “James” as a “book worm punk blogger f—t” — repeatedly confronts the narrator, only for him to choose to read her fiction rather than take her to bed.
“We’re not going to have sex. If you want to come in, I’ll read you a story,” he tells her when she calls his room at 3 a.m.
He writes:
‘Once upon a time a guy, a Hollywood guy, read some Salinger to a young woman who hadn’t read him before. Let’s call this girl Lindsay. She was a Hollywood girl, but a damaged one. I knew that she would like Salinger, because most young women do. I read her two of the ‘Nine Stories,’ ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ and ‘For Esmé—with Love and Squalor.’
Later, after reading her the stories, “James” lets her talk, rather than letting things get physical: “Now we were lying in bed,” he writes. “I wasn’t going to f—k her. She had her head on my shoulder. She started to talk. I let her.”
Later in the story, Franco wonders what will happen to the fictional “Lindsay.”
‘I ran my fingers through her hair and thought about this girl sleeping on my chest, our fictional Hollywood girl, Lindsay. What will she do? I hope she gets better. You see, she is famous. She was famous because she was a talented child actress, and now she’s famous because she gets into trouble. She is damaged. For a while, after her high hellion days, she couldn’t get work because she couldn’t get insured. They thought she would run off the sets to party. Her career suffered, and she started getting arrested (stealing, DUIs, car accidents, other things). But the arrests, even as they added up, were never going to be an emotional bottom for her, because she got just as much attention for them as she used to get for her film performances.’
The “Freaks and Geeks” star’s name was one of dozens of Hollywood heavyweights on a list found at the Beverly Hills Hotel at the end of January. Other actors included Lukas Haas (who coincidentally makes a cameo in the story), Justin Timberlake and Zac Efron, among others.
The name-drop-heavy story bears a striking resemblance to the denial Franco issued on “The Howard Stern Show” last month.
“I never had sex with Lindsay Lohan,” he told Stern. “I will swear on my mother’s life that I never had sex with her.”
“We were at this hotel during a very dark period of her history … and it seemed pretty damn clear that she liked me,” he continued. “She’d come out to the pool area and find me … She even broke into my room one time … I open my eyes and there’s Lindsay in my room at 3 a.m.”