Who Is James Franco's Girlfriend? All About Isabel Pakzad

James Franco was first romantically linked to Isabel Pakzad in November 2017

James Franco has been in a long-term relationship for nearly seven years.

The Why Him? star has been dating his girlfriend Isabel Pakzad since November 2017, but the pair didn’t make their first public appearance together until the summer of 2018.

Franco has refrained from sharing many details about their relationship with the public. Though, in recent years, the actor has started to open up more about their romance including the storms they weathered early on in their relationship. The biggest of those being the sexual misconduct allegations Franco faced in January 2018 (all of which he denied through an attorney at the time), as well as recovering from his sex addiction, which he revealed during a 2021 episode of SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Podcast.

"I had girlfriends. I could never be faithful to anybody. I cheated on everyone before Isabel," Franco said on the podcast. The actor noted that he struggled with being able to “be present” in the relationships he was in. Albeit, all that changed when he met Pakzad.

Similar to her boyfriend, Pakzad is also an actress and director. She starred in 2020’s Birds of Prey and alongside Franco in the 2019 TV series The Deuce.

More recently, the couple has made several red-carpet appearances together, including at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in May and the Biarritz Film Festival-NOUVELLES VAGUES in July. Pakzad and Franco also both appear on his mom's Instagram from time to time, including at a family wedding in Croatia in August 2024.

So who is James Franco’s girlfriend? Here’s everything to know about Isabel Pakzad and her relationship with the actor.

She is an actress and director

After earning her undergraduate degree in advertising and publicity from Penn State, Pakzad enrolled in acting classes and pursued a master's degree at the University of Southern California (USC). Some of her most notable acting credits include 2020’s Birds of Prey and the TV series Baker’s Dozen, which aired in 2019.

The short thriller Don’t Worry, It’s Gonna Be OK marked Pakzad’s directorial debut, and was awarded best short film at the L.A. Film Festival in 2022, as announced on Pakzad’s Instagram.

In April 2024, her debut feature, Find Your Friends, was announced. The movie, which follows a group of friends on a trip to Joshua Tree who face hostility from locals, per Deadline, stars Bella Thorne, among others. Pakzad, who wrote and directed the movie, shared her delight about it on Instagram the same month.

"This is truly my biggest dream come true. I’ve put my heart & soul into this film for the past 6 years, fighting everyday to get it made. Something crazy happened to me in the desert a few years ago which inspired me to write this film and run wild with it. Making this movie has truly been the best experience of my life," she wrote, in part, in a post about the movie.

Funny enough, Franco admitted on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Podcast that he wasn’t looking to date a fellow actor when he first met Pakzad.

“She wasn’t an actress when I met her,” Franco explained. “I wrote a list of everything that I was for [in a partner] and it wasn’t imperative, but I was like, ‘It’d be nice if she wasn’t an actress.”

Franco said that he didn’t find out Pakzad was taking an acting class until a few dates in. But, as he noted, it all turned out for the best because now they have even more to bond over.

“It turned out great because we share all these interests and she’s directing now,” he said. “I’m just so lucky.”

She is a world traveler

Pakzad is a passport stamp collector. From the Amalfi Coast and Rome to the Netherlands and London, Pakzad loves spending her free time jet-setting around the globe. Pakzad often shares glimpses into her travels on Instagram, including the time she spent a month vacationing in Greece in 2021 — a getaway spot of she and Franco have spent time in together, too.

She and Franco are nature explorers themselves. The pair were spotted enjoying a hike in Los Angeles in 2020 and surfing in Venice, Calif. in 2018.

More recently, in January 2024, she shared a photo from a trip to Milan, Italy, in which she tagged the fashion brand, Fendi.

She and Franco began dating in 2017

Pakzad and Franco reportedly struck up a romance in early November 2017, according to InStyle. That same month Franco inadvertently confirmed the status of their relationship to Variety while opening up about his journey of self-growth, specifically on how it pertains to his dating life.

Franco shared that earlier that year in September, Pakzad came down with a horrible throat infection at the San Sebastian Film Festival that eventually landed her in the emergency room. While Franco went with his girlfriend to the hospital, he explained to Variety that past him wouldn’t have done such a thing. In fact, Franco recalled a similar instance with a former girlfriend of his in which his assistant had to step in.

“There was one instance,” he began to explain. “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.”

Franco continued, “That moment haunted me so much. What kind of selfish, self-centered boyfriend are you?”

She has stuck by Franco’s side through tough times

In January 2018, just a few months into their brand-new relationship, Franco was accused of sexually inappropriate behavior by five women in an article written by the Los Angeles Times. At the time, his attorney Michael Plonsker denied each of the women’s allegations to the Times and cited comments that Franco had made during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as his formal denial.

In 2019, two of Franco's former acting students — one of whom made allegations against him in the Times article — filed a sexual misconduct lawsuit against him. In early 2021, Franco reached a settlement with the two women, and in June of that year, records obtained by PEOPLE from the Los Angeles Superior Court showed that the actor had agreed to pay $2,235,000 in the settlement.

As a result of the allegations, Franco retreated from Hollywood for four years. However, following the settlement of the lawsuit, he spoke out on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Podcast.

"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. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna pause.' Did not seem like the right time to say anything," he said, adding, "There were people that were upset with me and I needed to listen."

He went on to say that he had "been doing a lot of work.. and I guess I'm pretty confident in saying like, four years, you know? I was in recovery before for substance abuse. 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."

During the interview, Franco revealed he had been struggling with a sex addiction for years following his sobriety at age 17. In addition to working on himself and falling back on the tools he learned in recovery, Franco acknowledged the impact of the allegations on his girlfriend and praised her as "incredible."

Related: James Franco Breaks Silence 4 Years After Sexual Misconduct Allegations: 'Been Doing a Lot of Work'

“I would be willing to bet that it was very hard for her,” Franco answered when asked if the allegations made against him were challenging for Pakzad.

“She had six months of fun stuff,” Franco later explained, noting that his movie Disaster Artist had just come out, and consequently, he and Pakzad were out and about more than usual. “It was all really exciting and then she got this whole other side.”

Despite Franco’s situation, Pakzad stayed by his side.

“She’s incredible,” Franco said on the podcast. “I’m so lucky that I found her.”

She and Franco made their red carpet debut in 2018

In July 2018, Pakzad and Franco first stepped out together for the official Broadway opening of Straight White Men.

The memorable evening marked their red carpet debut as a couple as well as their first public appearance together since Franco was accused of sexual misconduct in January 2018. The smiling couple walked the red carpet hand-in-hand, while also posing for cameras with their arms wrapped around each other.

More recently, the couple stepped out together for a rare public appearance when they attended the 2024 Cannes Film Festival together for the Cannes premiere of Kinds Of Kindness in May. Franco wore a black suit for the event, while Pakzad's matched him in a black blazer with chain detailing and black pants.

Just a month later, they hit the red carpet again for the Biarritz Film Festival in Biarritz, France. The couple matched in black again, with Pakzad opting for a chic mini-dress and her actor boyfriend wearing a black t-shirt, blazer and pants.

She and Franco keep their relationship out of the spotlight

A notoriously private couple, Pakzad and Franco refrain from talking about each other in the public eye, for the most part at least.

While Pakzad is very active on social media, often sharing photos from her travels and with friends, she doesn’t post snaps of her and Franco together on her grid. Meanwhile, the Why Him? star deleted his Instagram early on in their relationship.

“It’s very liberating,” Franco told Variety of quitting Instagram. “I just got rid of it. When I first got on, it just felt silly. I treated it like it was a joke. You get in that weird seductive space where it feels private, but it’s also public. And you get hooked on the reaction.”

However, fans of the couple can get a glimpse into their life through Franco's mom, Betsy Franco who often includes snaps of her son and his girlfriend on her own Instagram grid.

On New Year's Day 2024, Betsy posted a photo of the family posing with Barbie dolls she had made for them in their image.

To celebrate James' 46th birthday in April, she shared a sweet message to her son alongside a photo of him posing with his arm around Pakzad. A few months later, in June, the couple joined Betsy on a trip to Paris, and featured in several snaps on a carousel of the trip she posted on Instagram.

Most recently, in August, James and Pakzad, as well as his brother Dave Franco and wife Alison Brie, joined their mom at their cousin's wedding in Croatia, with all five smiling together in a snap from the special day that Betsey posted on social media.

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