Chris D’Elia spoke out for the first time since multiple Twitter users accused him of sexual harassment and grooming.
“I know I have said and done things that might have offended people during my career, but I have never knowingly pursued any underage women at any point,” the stand-up comedian, 40, said in a statement to TMZ on Wednesday, June 17. “All of my relationships have been both legal and consensual and I have never met or exchanged any inappropriate photos with the people who have tweeted about me.”
He added, “That being said, I really am truly sorry. I was a dumb guy who ABSOLUTELY let myself get caught up in my lifestyle. That’s MY fault. I own it. I’ve been reflecting on this for some time now and I promise I will continue to do better.”
A woman named Simoné Rossi was the first to come forward with allegations against D’Elia on Tuesday, June 16. After writing that she “still can’t believe netflix cast chris d’elia as the pedophile in season to [sic] of ‘you,’” Rossi shared a series of screenshots of emails she and D’Elia allegedly exchanged in 2014 and 2015 when she was 16 years old.
“Imagine being 16 and being groomed by a stand up comedian twice ur age and the only reason you never met up and never got physically m*lested was because u had just gotten a boyfriend ur own age,” she tweeted. “For the longest time i thought it was embarrassing for ME that i was interacting with this older man but he was the one who DM’d me on twitter and was the one who was twice my age and was the one that used the power imbalance between us to his advantage so f*ck chris d’elia.”
As the You alum’s name became a trending topic on Twitter on Tuesday night, more women began to speak out against him. Many of them submitted their stories to @SheRatesDogs, an account with more than 550,000 followers that allows women to anonymously call out men’s inappropriate behavior.
One submission alleged that D’Elia “exposed himself to the woman who went to help” fix the air conditioner in his Cleveland hotel room in early 2018 and “then tried to get her to come back to the room.” Another entry claimed that D’Elia “tried to fly a girl … from Canada to LA to stay with him and hookup,” and then proceeded to use the 18-year-old’s nude photos as “blackmail … when she said she didnt want to go.”
A Twitter user named Meg, meanwhile, accused the Undateable alum of trying “to f–k my friend when we were 16, and when i called u out on twitter you told her you’d ruin her life if i didn’t delete it.” Fellow comedian Emma Arnold, for her part, tweeted that “one of Delia’s best friends warned me to never send Chris nudes bc he made them into memes and showed to other male comics at shows.”
The Good Doctor alum was previously married to actress Emily Montague from 2006 to 2010. He announced in February that he welcomed a son with his girlfriend, artist Kristin Taylor.
