Jason Alexander has issued an apology to Courtney Stodden after she criticized his involvement in a 2012 comedy sketch that mocked her intelligence and included physical contact while she was still underage.
Stodden addressed the sketch in a detailed Instagram statement, reflecting on the period when she was married to The Green Mile actor Doug Hutchinson. She said her age became part of the joke and argued that, as a minor, she had no real control over whether she took part.
“I was 17 years old in this photo,” Stodden said of an image of Alexander holding an iPhone against her breast.
At the time, Stodden appeared in the sketch wearing a red bikini, while Alexander, then 52, stood beside her in more formal clothing.
“The older I get, the more impossible this is to understand,” she said as she claimed the seasoned actor ‘repeatedly rubbed his phone across my breast while saying there was ‘no signal’ in my head but “plenty of signal” in my chest.’
In the Funny or Die video, Alexander played a fictional host named Dr Donny Clay, a parody figure conducting a mock examination of Stodden while Hutchinson sat nearby. The premise involved Alexander pretending to scan Stodden’s heart using an app on his phone.
But the gag revealed that the supposed app was actually the phone’s camera. As he moved the device across her chest and debated with Hutchinson about where her heart was, the sound of photos being taken could be heard.
Stodden added that the actor also ‘joked that when I turn 18 he’d like to take me behind the couch and “have his way” with me’ in the sketch, as his character progressively becomes more and more flirtatious with Stodden.
Following the backlash, Alexander, now 66, responded with a public apology.
In a statement to Page Six, Alexander said: “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.”
“But more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden,” he said, adding: “I offer her my sincerest apologies.”
The renewed attention also comes as Stodden continues to campaign against child marriage in California. State law still allows a person under 18 to marry only with parental consent and a court order, though a bill backed by Stodden’s advocacy efforts would establish 18 as the minimum marriage and domestic partnership age with no exceptions.
Now 31, Stodden has turned much of her attention toward campaigning to make 18 the minimum age for marriage in California. She has frequently spoken about marrying Hutchinson at 16 while he was in his 50s.
Of the sketch, she continued in her post: “As an adult, that fact has become harder — not easier — for me to understand. I was a minor. I didn’t have the legal power to decide whether I wanted to participate. The contracts were signed by adults. The paycheck went to Doug.”
“The production moved forward. I was the only child in the room,” she added. “I felt so alone.”
“I see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke,” she explained. “People still say, ‘You chose to be there.’ Legally, I couldn’t make those decisions for myself. That’s the point.”
“I can’t change what happened to me but I can ask myself: How did so many adults look at a minor and decide this was acceptable?” she said in her post. “That’s exactly why I speak out today. Children deserve laws that protect them. They shouldn’t have to become adults before realizing the law should have protected them all along.”