James Franco Goes Shirtless With His Bikini-Clad GF Izabel Pakzad In Italy: Rare Photos
James Franco and his longtime girlfriend enjoyed a dip in the waters of the Tuscan coast as they enjoyed Independence Day in Italy.
James Franco and his longtime girlfriend Izabel Pakzad celebrated Independence Day by enjoying the Italian sunshine on a stunning vacation. The pair were spotted relaxing on the beach at Hotel Il Pellicano and taking a dive in the beautiful blue waters of Porto Ercole, Italy on Tuesday, July 4. James, 45, worked on his tan as he went shirtless in blue swim trunks, while Izabel, 30, stunned in a light pink two-piece.
The Disaster Artist actor and Izabel, who is best known for having a minor role in 2020’s Birds of Prey, have been together since 2017. They are extremely private about their relationship but have been spotted on picturesque vacations together numerous times, frequenting Greece. James opened up about their relationship briefly during a 2017 chat with Variety (via PEOPLE) and spoke about how he wanted to be a better boyfriend than he previously had been.
“There was one instance, this old girlfriend was visiting me in New York. I had come out here for school. My cat had scratched her in the eye. I had so much work to get done for the next day, I didn’t take her to the hospital. I had my assistant take her,” he recalled. “That moment haunted me so much. What kind of selfish, self-centered boyfriend are you?”
Notably, Izabel stood by James’ side as he was hit with a series of sexual misconduct allegations and even gave two former acting school students a $2.2 million settlement after they accused him of taking advantage of them, per NBC News. The class action lawsuit he was subject to accused James and his partners of “[sexualizing] their power and fame by dangling the opportunity to aspiring actors of employment in film and television in exchange for explicit nudity, sex and as Franco put it, the ‘pushing of boundaries'”. He ran an acting school, called Studio 4, between 2013 and 2017.
In 2021, James admitted to being addicted to sex as a form of validation while on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast. He claimed his addiction began after he decided to go sober at 17 years old. “Once I couldn’t use alcohol to sort of fill that hole, it was like — oh, success? attention? This is great. And so, in a weird way, I got addicted to validation, I guess, or success, or whatever that is,” he explained.
He added, “Attention from women, success with women, also became a huge source of validation for me. The problem with that is like, I’m sure you can guess, like any sort of drug or anything, there’s never enough.”
James has stayed out of the spotlight since coming clean about his issues in 2021, and has not held a major role since 2019. He does, however, have several projects in the works, according to IMDb.