The couple started dating in 2017.
James Franco and Izabel Pakzad are living the good life at a leisurely pace. Because while the longtime couple sees a future together, they're not exactly in a rush to walk down the aisle.
A source tells ET that the Pineapple Express star and his 29-year-old girlfriend are going strong. They started dating in 2017, and while they've kept their relationship out of the spotlight, that by no means is a sign their relationship has wavered. Far from it, actually.
"Their relationship is solid and they are very happy together," the source tells ET. "They aren't in a rush to get engaged, but they definitely see a future together. They are just enjoying this moment."
Earlier this week, the couple was spotted basking in the sun while vacationing in Mykonos. The 40-year-old actor looked jacked while taking a dip in the ocean. Pakzad looked stunning in a revealing outfit. They've come a long way since the early part of their relationship, when Franco was embroiled in controversy after the Los Angeles Times published a January 2018 report detailing the accounts of five women accusing Franco of inappropriate sexual behavior.
He later reached a settlement in the 2019 lawsuit by former students at his now-defunct Studio 4 acting school, agreeing to pay $2,235,000. The suit was filed by two women who accused Franco of creating an environment of harassment and sexual exploitation. Franco's attorney, Michael Plonsker, denied the claims in a previous statement to ET.
Back in December, Franco broke his silence on the controversy surrounding him, telling SiriusXM's Jess Cagle why he remained silent amid the controversy.
"Well, in 2018, there were some complaints about me and an article about me and at that moment I just thought, I'm gonna be quiet," he said. "I'm gonna pause. Did not seem like the right time to say anything. There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen."
"So, I've just been doing a lot of work," he continued. "And I guess I'm pretty confident in saying like, four years, you know? And, I was in recovery before, you know, for substance abuse. And there were some issues that I had to deal with that were also related to addiction. And so I've really used my recovery background to kind of start examining this and changing who I was."
In that same interview, Franco revealed being in recovery for sex addiction since 2016 and also acknowledged cheating on all of his past partners prior to Pakzad.
"It's such a powerful drug. And I, I got hooked on it for 20 more years," he said. "And the insidious part of that is that I stayed sober from alcohol all that time. And I went to meetings, you know, all that time. I even tried to, you know, to sponsor other people. And so in my head, it was like, 'Oh, I'm sober. I'm living a spiritual life.’ Where on the side, I'm acting out now in all these other ways. And I couldn't see it."
"I'd had girlfriends," he continued. "I could never be faithful to anybody. So I cheated. I cheated on everyone before [Izabel] and [my sponsor's] like, 'Look, the cheating is dishonest. I don't think that's good for your sobriety, but if you're not dating someone and you wanna go and hook up, like whatever happens between two consenting adults is fine.’ Like, that's what he said. The problem was, I took that and I ran with it and used it as an excuse to, you know, just hook up all over the place. And it was like, well, we're being honest here. Right? And like you said, like I was completely blind to power dynamics or anything like that, but also completely blind to people's feelings. I didn't wanna hurt people. And I, in fact, I wasn't like really a one-night-stand guy. Like people that I, you know, got together with or dated, like I'd see them for a long time, years. It's just that I couldn't be present for any of them. And the behavior spun out to a point where it was like I was hurting everybody."
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