Jason Alexander, the former \u201cSeinfeld\u201d actor, shared an apology on Tuesday for his participation in a comedy sketch that sexualized the actress Courtney Stodden more than a decade ago, when she was 17.<\/p>\n
In the 2012 sketch, published by the defunct comedy website Funny or Die, Alexander played a quack life coach who rubs a phone against Stodden\u2019s breasts, purporting to measure the \u201cquality of her heart.\u201d Later in the sketch, Alexander\u2019s character sits himself between Stodden and her husband at the time, the actor Doug Hutchison, and rests his hands on her knees.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking 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,\u201d Alexander said in a statement, published earlier by TMZ. \u201cBut more importantly, I am deeply sorry for any harm or distress it has caused Ms. Stodden. I offer her my sincerest apologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stodden initially gained media attention for her marriage in 2011, at 16, to Hutchison, who was then 51. The couple discussed their relationship and age gap in news interviews and on television shows, including \u201cCouples Therapy\u201d and \u201cCelebrity Big Brother.\u201d They divorced in 2020.<\/p>\n
A representative for Alexander did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Stodden said in a statement on Wednesday that she appreciated the public apology. But, she added, \u201cPeople keep asking if he\u2019s apologized privately, and he hasn\u2019t. A private apology would be meaningful, but meaningful action would be even more powerful,\u201d such as supporting a current California state bill to end child marriage.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Stodden had shared a post on Instagram criticizing Alexander for his involvement in the sketch, noting that he was credited as one of its writers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see comedy,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent years, Stodden has spoken out about her treatment by adults when she was a minor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Alexander, the former \u201cSeinfeld\u201d actor, shared an apology on Tuesday for his participation in a comedy sketch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[245486,7335,178055,49,48,361,283530,8453,75,287302,42879,287303,1788],"class_list":["post-820341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-actors-and-actresses","tag-alexander","tag-apologies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-comedy-and-humor","tag-courtney","tag-entertainment","tag-funnyordie-com","tag-jason","tag-stodden","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}