UPDATED 6/17, 4:10 p.m. ET: D’Elia has issued a statement to TMZ, which opens, ”I know I have said and done things that might have offended people during my career, but I have never knowingly pursued any underage women at any point.”
He goes on: “All of my relationships have been both legal and consensual and I have never met or exchanged any inappropriate photos with the people who have tweeted about me. That being said, I really am truly sorry. I was a dumb guy who ABSOLUTELY let myself get caught up in my lifestyle. That’s MY fault. I own it. I’ve been reflecting on this for some time now and I promise I will continue to do better."
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Comedian Chris D'Elia, whose credits include playing a pedophile on You in 2019 and doing the same on Workaholics back in 2011, has been accused by multiple people of—among other things—soliciting photos from minors.
Simone Rossi shared screenshots of emails she says she received from D'Elia in 2014 and 2015. At the time, she was 16 years old and D'Elia was 34.
"Imagine being 16 and being groomed by a stand up comedian twice [your] age and the only reason you never met up and never got physically molested was because [you] had just gotten a boyfriend [your] own age," @girlpowertbh said in one tweet accompanied by a screenshot.
As the thread started gaining traction on Twitter, other women came forward with additional allegations in which D'Elia was accused of similar acts of harassment including asking an underage fan to "cuddle" with him after a show in Boulder and exposing himself to hotel employees in Cleveland.
Rossi added a screenshot of what she says is the beginning of her contact with D'Elia, as well as criticized incels who somehow fail to understand how predatory behavior may not immediately be recognized as such by a young victim:
These developments have spawned additional condemnation of D'Elia from a variety of voices on Twitter, as well as a larger discussion on the prevalence of predatory behavior:
Complex has reached out to a rep for D'Elia. At the time of this writing, no statement had been provided.
