What to Know
Courtney Stodden came to fame at just 16 years old after marrying Doug Hutchison, who was 50 at the time. After years of being poked fun at online (and a couple of stints on reality TV), Courtney realized that she was always too young to ever be in on the joke, and her divorce from Doug was finalized in 2020.
Now 31, Courtney is speaking out about the way she was treated in the media as a minor, and right now, she’s pointing the finger at comedian Jason Alexander.
Courtney is calling attention to a Funny or Die sketch from 2012.
In the sketch, Jason played a creepy talk show host who was interviewing her and Doug. At the time, Courtney was 17, while Doug was 51. Obviously, there were plenty of adults in the room who could have said something about how inappropriate the sketch became, but it doesn’t sound like anyone did.
Courtney shared a still from the sketch in a post on Instagram, explaining the way things played out.
“I was 17 years old in this photo. The older I get, the more impossible this is to understand,” she wrote. “During this comedy sketch, Jason Alexander repeatedly rubbed his phone across my breasts while saying there was ‘no signal’ in my head but ‘plenty of signal’ in my chest.”
Courtney continued, “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. IMDb credits him as one of the writers of the episode. As an adult, that fact has become harder—not easier—for me to understand.”
She said she had no “legal power” when it came to the sketch she participated in.
At the time, Courtney said Doug was making her decisions for her — and he was also the one profiting off of their dynamic.
“I was a minor. I didn’t have the legal power to decide whether I wanted to participate,” she said. “The contracts were signed by adults. The paycheck went to Doug. The production moved forward. I was the only child in the room. I felt so alone.”
And even though people tell her she “chose” to be in situations like this, as a minor, it wasn’t really her say.
“I can’t change what happened to me but I can ask myself: How did so many adults look at a minor and decide this was acceptable?” she wrote. “That’s exactly why I speak out today. Children deserve laws that protect them. They shouldn’t have to become adults before realizing the law should have protected them all along.”
Courtney is fighting to end child marriage.
In recent years, Courtney has become an advocate for anyone who is in or was in her position. Child marriage is still legal in California — as long as a minor has their parents’ permission, like Courtney did, they are able to get legally married.
While fighting for a bill that would make the age of legal marriage 18 at minimum in the state, Courtney shared a photo of herself campaigning near the White House earlier this month.
“When I joined advocates in Sacramento this year, I wasn’t walking into the beginning of a movement, I was walking into nearly a decade of work that survivors refused to give up on,” she wrote. “When I was 16 years old, the law allowed me to marry a 51-year-old man. but this fight didn’t start with me.”
And in case anyone was wondering, so far, Jason Alexander has remained very quiet.
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