Jason Alexander has publicly apologized to Courtney Stodden for a 2012 comedy sketch that he now calls inappropriate, bringing fresh attention to a video that paired a 52-year-old actor with a 17-year-old participant in sexualized jokes and behavior. Alexander said Wednesday that he was deeply sorry for any harm or distress the sketch caused.
The apology lands more than 14 and a half years after the sketch was released in Jan. 2012 on Funny or Die and YouTube as a parody of Dr. Phil under the title The Donny Clay Show. It has since been taken down, but the details remain stark: Alexander was shown fondling Stodden’s breasts with a cell phone and later saying that when she turned 18, he would take her behind the couch and have his way with her.
In a statement to Variety, Alexander said he looked back on the sketch and completely agreed it was inappropriate, adding that he truly regretted it and offered Stodden his sincerest apologies. Stodden, now 31 and divorced from Doug Hutchison, said in an Instagram post that she felt alone and exploited making the video and later realized how foul it was years after seeing Pretty Woman for the first time. Watching the scene in which Alexander’s character assaults Julia Roberts’ prostitute in a hotel suite, she said she was in shock and felt the sketch had pulled from that moment to recreate it with a child.
That reaction is part of why the apology matters now. Stodden has been working recently with Unchained at Last to push California toward AB 1267, a measure she says would effectively ban child marriage by setting 18 as the legal minimum age to wed. She has said there is no minimum age for marriage in California and has pointed to Mississippi and New Mexico as the only other states that still allow it.
Stodden welcomed the apology as a first step, saying she was taken aback that an adult had finally taken accountability. But she also made clear that she wants more. She said she would urge Alexander to support AB 1267 or donate to Unchained at Last, leaving the question of whether the apology turns into action still open.
