Courtney Stodden has slammed “Seinfeld” alum Jason Alexander over a controversial 2012 “Funny or Die” skit they filmed together when they were underage.
“I was 17 years old in this photo,” Stodden began, sharing an image of Alexander holding an iPhone to his chest. In the photo, the then-52-year-old actor is seen wearing a polo shirt and blazer, while Stodden is seen wearing a skimpy bikini.
“The older you get, the more impossible it is to understand this,” Stodden continued, recalling how Alexander “kept rubbing his cell phone against my chest, saying in his head, ‘No signal,’ but in his chest, ‘There’s plenty of signal.'”
Stodden added that later in the skit, the Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor “joked that when I turned 18, he wanted to take me behind the couch and do whatever he wanted with me.”
According to IMDb, Alexander, 66, will appear alongside Stodden and her then-husband Doug Hutchison and is credited as a writer on a sketch titled “The Don Clay Show with Courtney Stodden.”
“Growing up, it’s not easy to understand that, it’s harder. I was a minor,” Stodden said. “I had no legal authority to decide whether to participate or not. The contract was signed by an adult. The salary was paid to Doug.”
“The production was going on and I was the only person in the room,” she added. “I felt very alone.”
Stodden, now 31, said looking back 14 years later, the sketch doesn’t seem like a comedy at all.
“I saw a 17-year-old girl become part of an adult joke,” she explained. “People still say, ‘You chose to be there.’ Legally, I couldn’t make that decision on my own. That’s the point.”
“You can’t change what happened to you, but you can ask yourself: Why did so many adults look at a minor and decide this was acceptable?” she concluded her post. “That’s exactly why I’m speaking out today. Children deserve laws that protect them. They don’t have to grow up to realize that the laws should have been protecting them all along.”
“When I was 17, I was a minor and working in an environment where the adults around me were responsible for my safety and well-being. Looking back as an adult, those experiences are very different now than they were then.”
“The reason I speak out now is not to look back on the past for its own sake… but to help create a future where children are better protected and adults in positions of power are held to higher standards,” she added.
“Looking back at the comedy skit that Ms. Stodden and I participated in in 2012, I completely agree that it was inappropriate and truly regret it,” Alexander said in his statement to Page Six.
“But more importantly, we deeply apologize for the harm and distress caused to Mr. Stodden.” “I sincerely apologize to her.”
In recent years, Stodden has accused Hutchison, whom she married when she was 16 and he was 51, of a “predator” and “pedophile,” and their 2011 marriage sparked controversy.
The “Green Mile” actor, now 66, has dismissed his ex-wife’s claims.
Stodden filed for divorce from Hutchison in 2018, and the divorce was finalized in 2020.
These days, Stodden, who is married to film and television producer Jared Safia, has used her platform to advocate for the passage of AB 1267, a bipartisan bill that would set the minimum age for marriage in California to 18 without exception.
Stodden’s mother gave permission for Hutchison to marry her daughter. Stodden said her mother has repeatedly apologized for allowing this to happen.
The “Celebrity Big Brother” alum told Page Six why she supports passing the bill because she believes experiences like hers with Alexander in the 2012 “Funny or Die” skit “require a broader conversation about how minors are treated and protected in the entertainment industry and beyond.”
