It took fourteen and a half years, but Jason Alexander finally apologized.
On Wednesday, the “Seinfeld” actor issued a public apology to Courtney Stodden for a “comedy” sketch the two filmed together wherein Alexander, who was 52 at the time, fondled a 17-year-old Stodden’s breasts with a cell phone and said that when she turned 18, he would take her behind the couch and have his way with her.
“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 to Variety. “But more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden. I offer her my sincerest apologies.”
The sketch, a parody of “Dr. Phil” dubbed “The Donny Clay Show” with Alexander playing a creepy talk-show host, was released in Jan. 2012 on the Funny or Die website and its YouTube channel (it has since been taken down). Stodden is featured in the video alongside Doug Hutchison, a journeyman actor who notoriously married her in 2011 when he was 51 and she only 16. At the time, the media mainly treated Stodden as a punchline while failing to hold Hutchison accountable for his predation. Alexander gave his apology after Stodden, who is now 31 and divorced from Hutchison, made an Instagram post recounting how “alone” and exploited she felt making that video.
Stodden tells Variety she was pleasantly surprised that Alexander took responsibility for his role in the disturbing sketch, which he also co-wrote, but could take it a step further. “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,” Stodden explains. “When I first got word that he publicly apologized I was grateful because I think that’s the first step in change. At the same time, I think it would be even better if he put that into action, so I would urge Jason Alexander to support AB 1267 and support what’s happening in California or even donate to Unchained at Last.”
Recently, Stodden has been working with the group Unchained at Last, the only nonprofit in the U.S. dedicated to ending child marriage, to convince California to pass AB 1267, a bill that would effectively ban child marriage by making the legal minimum age to wed 18 years old.
“It’s really frightening that there’s no minimum age for someone to get married in California,” Stodden asserts. “There are only two other states that allow this, Mississippi and New Mexico, and to think that California allows this is shocking.”
As for the Funny or Die sketch, Stodden says it was only years after appearing in the video that she realized just how foul it was. The realization came as she was watching “Pretty Woman” for the first time and arrived at the scene where Jason Alexander’s villain assaults Julia Roberts’ prostitute in a hotel suite.
“I was in shock,” she says of watching the “Pretty Woman” scene. “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. I didn’t know he was going to be feeling me up on set.”
Stodden continues, “I was very manipulated. Even if I didn’t look like a child, or what a ‘victim’ should look like, there was a child buried under there. I really just trusted the adults around me, and this is the effect of that. Looking back on it, it’s really damaging. This isn’t about revisiting my past but changing the experiences for minors going forward so they don’t have to experience what I had to experience.”
Even though she’s received public apologies from Chrissy Teigen for cyberbullying her, and now Jason Alexander, Stodden never received any sort of mea culpa from Dr. Drew Pinsky who, when she was only 16 years old, performed an ultrasound on Stodden’s breasts on his show “Lifechangers” to prove they were real.
“Dr. Drew actually doubled down and had his wife sarcastically invite me on his podcast to further exploit me,” Stodden recalls. “Getting an apology from an actor and not a doctor is kind of diabolical.”
Stodden, along with a group of other survivors affiliated with Unchained at Last, will be visiting the California State Capitol again next month to speak to legislators about ending child marriage in the state she calls home. She’s also focused on finishing her memoir and may be participating in a docuseries chronicling her fight to end child marriage.
“At the end of the day, I don’t want to be remembered for what happened to me,” Stodden states. “I want to be remembered for helping make sure that this doesn’t happen again to another child.”