Jason Alexander apologizes for Funny Or Die sketch with Courtney Stodden

Jason Alexander apologized for a 2012 Funny Or Die sketch he filmed with Courtney Stodden when she was 17, saying he “truly regrets” doing it and any harm it caused her. The apology came after the video resurfaced and Stodden publicly called him out, turning an old comedy bit into a fresh test of how the entertainment industry handles its treatment of teenage girls.

Stodden, who rose to fame after marrying actor Doug Hutchison at 16, said the sketch was disturbing and stressed that she was underage when it was filmed. Multiple outlets reported that she alleged Alexander repeatedly rubbed his phone across her breasts in the scene, a detail that intensified the backlash and reframed the clip as a question of adult conduct rather than edgy humor.

The dispute lands differently now than it did when the video was made. In the 2010s, Stodden’s identity was often flattened into tabloid shorthand, with her teenage marriage treated as spectacle and her public image shaped by adults profiting from the attention around her. More than a decade later, the apology was covered across Rolling Stone, TMZ, Variety, People and Entertainment Weekly, reflecting an industry climate in which the age gap, the consent issue and the sexualized premise are harder to ignore.

Alexander’s statement offered no defense of the sketch as misunderstood comedy. By apologizing for the “inappropriate” video and saying he “truly regrets” it, he joined a growing wave of entertainment figures revisiting material that once passed with little resistance but now reads as evidence of how easily 2010s pop culture normalized boundary-crossing behavior around minors. The resurfaced clip has become less a punch line than a record of how that culture made exploitation look casual.