Franco: 'I stole cologne to make money'

Rex Features

James Franco has confessed that he used to steal bottles of cologne to make money.

Appearing on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, the Spider-Man actor said that he was involved in a scheme to shoplift then sell bottles to classmates in high school.

"I don't know how it happened but somehow I got into stealing cologne. It's kind of ironic now," said Franco, who endorses Gucci fragrances. "We would go into department stores and they had the testers out there, we were looking for a bit of excitement.

"We had our cologne stealing ring. We would chat up the cologne attendant and then the other would swipe the bottle. We accumulated a huge stash, we would keep it in our lockers. We were in eighth grade so we'd sell it to the seventh graders, we would sell it for $15 - I think it cost about 25 in the shops."

Franco also admitted to urinating in bottles that he would sell to schoolmates he disliked. "One horrible thing, if I go to hell for anything it will be for this." he said. "They have the little tester tubes, if we were going to a dance and there was someone we didn't like, we would pee in the bottle."