Jason Alexander apologizes after Courtney Stodden calls out 2012 sketch

Jason Alexander apologized to Courtney Stodden after Stodden publicly called out a 2012 Funny or Die sketch that resurfaced online in 2026 and showed Alexander repeatedly rubbing his phone against Stodden’s chest when Stodden was 17. Alexander said he was “deeply sorry” and that he “truly regret[s] it,” adding that he had not fully appreciated the situation at the time.

Stodden said, “I was 17 years old.” Stodden also described the clip as “inappropriate” and said, “I don’t see comedy. I see a 17-year-old girl whose body became part of an adult joke.” Those words recast the sketch as more than an awkward old bit: they placed age, power and public humiliation at the center of the exchange.

The original video, made in 2012 and later circulating again in 2026, returned to view at a moment when entertainment culture is under sharper scrutiny for how it treated young women in the early 2010s. What once could pass as edgy internet comedy now reads, in Stodden’s account, as an adult joke built around a minor’s body. The exchange also revived questions about who was laughing then, who was being exposed, and why so many platforms treated sexualized material involving minors as disposable content.

Stodden later accepted Alexander’s apology, closing one chapter of the dispute even as the broader criticism remained. The reaction to the resurfaced sketch showed how quickly old entertainment clips can become evidence in a larger reckoning over consent, age and the casual use of humiliation for humor.