'Seinfeld' Alum Jason Alexander Apologizes To Courtney Stodden For Filming "Inappropriate" Sketch When She Was Underage: "I Truly Regret It" - Deadline

What the report says

Deadline reported that Jason Alexander has apologized to Courtney Stodden over a 2012 Funny or Die comedy sketch filmed when Stodden was 17. The July 22 report said Stodden recently revisited the sketch publicly and questioned how adults involved in the production considered it acceptable for a minor to participate in material centered on their body and sexuality.

In a statement to TMZ cited by Deadline, Alexander said he now agreed the sketch was inappropriate, regretted taking part and apologized for harm or distress caused to Stodden. Deadline noted that Stodden described moments from the sketch in which Alexander’s character used a phone against Stodden’s chest as part of a joke, and later made a sexualized remark tied to Stodden turning 18. Stodden also said IMDb lists Alexander among the episode’s writers.

Stodden connected the renewed attention to advocacy for California AB1267, a proposed bill that Deadline described as seeking to ban child marriage. Stodden married actor Doug Hutchison in 2011, when Stodden was 16 and Hutchison was 51. In reflecting on the sketch, Stodden said adults signed the contracts and that Hutchison received the paycheck, while Stodden, as a minor, lacked legal control over those decisions.

The episode matters because it intersects with ongoing scrutiny of entertainment-industry treatment of minors and broader debates over consent, child marriage laws and adult responsibility on sets. Deadline’s report focused on Alexander’s apology and Stodden’s argument that legal protections should prevent children from being placed in situations they may only later understand as harmful.