Courtney Stodden has slammed Seinfeld star Jason Alexander for what she said was an “incomprehensible” act towards her in a comedy skit when she was underage.
During the skit, Alexander rubbed his mobile phone on the chest of Stodden, who was 17 years old at the time.
Alexander did not appear to comment on this message.
The American media personality, actress and model made the announcement on Instagram while reflecting on her experiences in Hollywood as the teen fiancee of actor Doug Hutchison, who was 51 at the time.
Stodden, now 31, said she and Hutchison got together in 2012. Funny or die sketch centered on fictional The Donnie Clay Show where Alexander played the role of the sneaky presenter Clay.
In her post, Stodden shared a photo of herself as a teenager in a bikini while Alexander – as Clay – interviewed her and Hutchison.
“I was 17 years old in this photo,” she said in her lengthy post. Alexander was then 52 years old.
“The older I get, the harder it is to understand. During this comedy sketch, Jason Alexander repeatedly rubbed his phone on my chest, saying that there was “no signal” in my head, but “a lot of signal” in my chest.
“Later in the sketch, he joked that when I turned 18, he’d like to take me behind the couch and ‘have his way’ with me.”
Stodden added that entertainment database website IMDb lists Alexander, now 66, as one of the episode’s writers.
Now, six years after her divorce from Hutchinson, Stodden said it has become “harder, not easier, to understand” why she, as an underage teenager, was featured in the sketch.
“I had no legal authority 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 kid in the room. I felt so alone,” she recalled.
“Looking back, I don’t see comedy. I see a 17-year-old girl whose body was part of an adult joke. People still say, ‘You decided to be there.’ Legally, I couldn’t make those decisions on my own. That’s the whole point.”
Stodden said while she can’t change what happened, she wanted to speak out.
“I can’t change what happened to me, but I can ask myself: How did so many adults look at a minor and decide that this was acceptable? That’s why I’m speaking out today,” she shared. “Children deserve laws that protect them. They don’t have to be adults before they understand that the law was meant to protect them all along.”
Like Stodden, many on social media didn’t find the skit funny.
“It’s very disturbing that they not only wrote this sketch, but also aired it,” commented one of Stodden’s Instagram posts.
“I remember believing your age but the media acted like you were understating it as a publicity stunt. Very strange of them,” wrote another.
“I’m just sorry everything happened to you. You didn’t deserve this. You deserve decency and protection from the adults around you,” one said.
“It’s so disgusting looking back on things we just thought were normal behavior. You were a child and the way you were treated is just disgusting,” another commented.
Stodden divorced Hutchinson in 2000, nine years after they tied the knot in Las Vegas. He was 51 at the time and she was only 16. The 35-year age difference sparked controversy around the world, but her mother and former manager Christa Keller agreed to her marriage. Green Mile actor.
On the day their divorce was finalized, Stodden opened up about their marriage on Instagram, criticizing her ex-husband for taking advantage of her when she was young.
“I was scared to even talk… during our almost 10 year marriage because I was a child and he was 50 (sic) when we got married,” Stodden wrote at the time. “But I’m a woman now, and it’s time for me to put on my big girl pants and speak out about this.”
The reality star went on to say that she “felt completely trapped, manipulated and at times abandoned by adults.”
“Growing up in this environment left me in a lonely and dark place,” she shared before addressing Hutchison directly in her post. “I will always love you, but I will always be angry. You left me – a girl-child, feeling humiliated and confused.”
In May this year, to mark their 15th wedding anniversary, Stodden opened up about how her past and being a “child bride” had left her with “adult trauma.”
“15 years ago today, a 16-year-old girl was married to a man 35 years older than her, and the world treated her as a brawler, not a victim,” she wrote next to a photo from their wedding day with the groom’s face scratched out.
“I was a virgin. Emotionally still a child. And too young to understand what was going to happen to me behind closed doors for years. Just because a child says ‘Yes’ doesn’t mean he understands consent.”
Stodden then revealed that she was “reducing the size of my breasts” to reclaim her body so she would feel “like it belonged to me and not to the public that had devoured it before I was even a woman.”