James Franco insists he wasn’t stoned at the Oscars, he was just overshadowed by Anne Hathaway.
“People said I was under the influence,” he told “Late Show” host David Letterman last night.
“Now why would they say that?” Letterman said, to big laughs.
Franco was rapped after co-hosting the Academy Awards with Hathaway last month for an energy level bordering on anemia.
The actor blamed his lethargic Oscars performance on Hathaway, saying that his energy was fine, but just paled in comparison to hers.
“I’ve thought about it. I think I know why, because — I love her — but Anne Hathaway is so energetic, I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway,” he said.
Ironically, he told this to Letterman, who knows a little about screwing up an Oscars telecast.
“I was so bad that they talked for a while about shutting down the motion-picture industry . . . I was God awful,” Letterman said of his 1995 appearance as host.