Jason Alexander has publicly apologized to Courtney Stodden for a 2012 comedy sketch. Stodden has accepted the gesture but says words must be followed by action. Previously, the Seinfeld actor expressed regret for the inappropriate video filmed when Stodden was 17.
The sketch, a parody of Dr. Phil called The Donny Clay Show, featured Alexander fondling the teenager’s breasts with a cell phone and making a lewd remark about her 18th birthday. The video was released on Funny or Die and has since been removed.
Courtney Stodden responds to Jason Alexander’s apology
Courtney Stodden told Variety she was caught off guard by the apology. “I’m very taken aback that an adult was actually able to take accountability because I haven’t heard a lot of adults take accountability,” she said.
While grateful, Stodden believes Jason Alexander should go further. She is urging him to support AB 1267, a California bill that would effectively ban child marriage by setting the legal minimum age to wed at 18. She also suggested he donate to Unchained at Last, the only US nonprofit dedicated to ending child marriage.
“It’s really frightening that there’s no minimum age for someone to get married in California,” Stodden said. “There are only two other states that allow this, Mississippi and New Mexico, and to think that California allows this is shocking.”
Stodden shared she only grasped how damaging the sketch was years later, while watching Pretty Woman for the first time. She saw Alexander’s character assault Julia Roberts and felt the scene mirrored her own experience.
“It felt very close to home, and like he pulled from ‘Pretty Woman’ and thought it would be funny to recreate that with a child,” she said. The actor added that she was kept in the dark about what would happen on set. “I didn’t know he was going to be feeling me up on set. I was very manipulated.”
Unlike Alexander, others have not apologised. Stodden pointed out that Dr. Drew Pinsky never expressed regret after performing an ultrasound on her breasts on his television show when she was 16, aiming to prove they were real.
