Jason Alexander is issuing a public apology to Courtney Stodden after she slammed the actor for their Funny or Die comedy sketch in which he rubbed a phone on her breasts when she was a minor.
“Looking back at the comedy sketch in which Ms. Stodden and I participated in 2012, I completely agree that it was inappropriate and I truly regret it,” the Seinfeld actor, 66, said in a statement to Us. “But more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden. I offer her my sincerest apologies.”
Stodden, 31, publicly called out Alexander via Instagram on Monday, July 20, while looking back at the comedy sketch, which parodied daytime television and featured Alexander using a cell phone to “assess the quality” of Stodden’s heart.
“I was 17 years old in this photo,” she wrote alongside a screenshot from the skit. “The older I get, the more impossible this is to understand. During this comedy sketch, Jason Alexander repeatedly rubbed his phone across my breasts while saying there was ‘no signal’ in my head but ‘plenty of signal’ in my chest. Later in the sketch, he joked that when I turned 18 he’d like to take me behind the couch and ‘have his way’ with me.”
Stodden also noted that Alexander is credited as a writer of the episode.
“As an adult, that fact has become harder — not easier — for me to understand. I was a minor. I didn’t have the legal power to decide whether I wanted to participate. The contracts were signed by adults,” she wrote, adding that her paycheck went to her then-husband, Doug Hutchison, who was 50 when he married a 16-year-old Stodden in 2011. The pair later split in 2017.
“I was the only child in the room,” Stodden recalled of the sketch. “I felt so alone. Looking back now, I don’t see comedy. I see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke.”
She concluded, “People still say, ‘You chose to be there.’ Legally, I couldn’t make those decisions for myself. That’s the point. I can’t change what happened to me, but I can ask myself: How did so many adults look at a minor and decide this was acceptable? That’s exactly why I speak out today. Children deserve laws that protect them. They shouldn’t have to become adults before realizing the law should have protected them all along.”
Stodden has campaigned against child marriage since her divorce from Hutchison. In addition to publicly speaking out against her ex on several occasions, Stodden has taken aim at others who allegedly exploited her in her youth. Last month, she slammed television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky, claiming that he forced her to undergo an exam of her breasts on live television when she was a minor.
“Dr. Drew had me on his show when I was 16 and had me undergo an ultrasound to see if my breasts were real or if I was lying about my breasts,” she wrote via Instagram. “I wasn’t an underage girl. I was a minor trapped in a situation that I wasn’t able to get out of legally. I had no rights at the time. The money he paid me to be on the show went straight to my abuser.”
Dr. Drew has not publicly responded to the allegations. His wife, Susan Pinsky, wrote via an Instagram comment, “I would love to talk to her on Ask Drew. If @courtneystodden wants to duke it out with Dr. Drew.”
