“Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander has apologized after model Courtney Stodden publicly called him out over a salacious 2012 comedy sketch the pair made when Stodden, now 31, was only 17 years old.
“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 told TMZ on Tuesday.
“But more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden,” he added. “I offer her my sincerest apologies.”
In the Funny or Die sketch, Alexander spoofed the talk show “Dr. Phil” and other daytime talk shows. The sketch showed Alexander rubbing a cellphone on a bikini-clad Stodden’s breast.
Stodden revisited the sketch and condemned it in an Instagram post Monday alongside an image of her from the skit where she was half-dressed and Alexander was fully clothed in a suit.
“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,” she wrote. “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.”
Noting that IMDB credits Alexander as one of the writers of the sketch, she wrote, “As an adult, that fact has become harder—not easier—for me to understand.”
Stodden wrote that at the time she was a minor and “didn’t have the legal power to decide whether I wanted to participate,” adding, “The contracts were signed by adults.”
“I was the only child in the room. I felt so alone,” she continued. “Looking back now, I don’t see comedy. I see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke.”
She also challenged critics who claimed that she readily took part in the sketch.
“People still say, ‘You chose to be there.’ Legally, I couldn’t make those decisions for myself. That’s the point.”
Stodden and Alexander didn’t immediately respond to celebrity.land’s requests for comment.
On Wednesday, Stodden, who tied the knot with actor Doug Hutchison in May 2011 when she was 16 years old and he was 51, told TMZ that she has accepted Alexander’s apology.
“I believe the most meaningful apology is one that creates change,” she told the outlet. “I would encourage him to support and donate to Unchained At Last, an organization I’m proud to advocate alongside that is leading the fight to end child marriage in the United States.”
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