Jason Alexander has issued an apology to Courtney Stodden for an inappropriate 2012 Funny or Die sketch, in which the Seinfeld actor rubbed a cellphone on Stodden’s breasts when she was a mere 17.
“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,” Alexander said in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “But more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden. I offer her my sincerest apologies.”
However, in a follow-up statement shared with THR after Alexander’s apology was widely reported on by the press, Stodden said, “I appreciate Jason Alexander’s public apology. People keep asking if he’s apologized privately, and he hasn’t. A private apology would be meaningful, but meaningful action would be even more powerful.”
“If he truly regrets what happened, I’d invite him to support Unchained At Last and the fight to end child marriage through AB 1267,” she continued. “That’s how we turn accountability into lasting change.”
In a Monday Instagram post, Stodden shared a photo from the sketch, where she was wearing a red bikini top and Alexander had a phone over top her breast. In the caption, she explained that she was underage when it was filmed. She wrote, “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. IMDb credits him as one of the writers of the episode. As an adult, that fact has become harder — not easier — for me to understand,” she continued. “I was a minor. I didn’t have the legal power to decide whether I wanted to participate. The contracts were signed by adults. The paycheck went to Doug [Hutchison]. The production moved forward. I was the only child in the room. I felt so alone.”
The model wed her ex-husband The Green Mile actor Doug Hutchison when she was 16. He was 51. In her Instagram post, she said, looking back, she questions how any adult allowed the sketch to occur.
“Looking back now, I don’t see comedy. I see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke. 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?” she wrote. “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.”
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