Update: In a statement to TMZ, Chris D’Elia has denied the allegations against him.
“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,” the comedian told TMZ. “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.”
The original story continues below.
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Comedian Chris D’Elia has been accused of sexually harassing multiple underage girls and young women in their early 20s. D’Elia, who has played multiple pedophile characters including the predatory comedian Henderson on Netflix’s You, allegedly solicited nudes from teenage girls and, in some cases, met with them in person.
The allegations appear to have begun with Twitter user @girlpowertbh, whose display name is Simoné. In a thread, Simoné said D’Elia “groomed” her at the age of 16. She included screen shots that purportedly show email exchanges between them, dated back to 2014, in which D’Elia asked her for “pics” and, at one point, asked to meet in person so they could “make out.”
“imagine being 16 and being groomed by a stand up comedian twice ur age and the only reason you never met up and never got physically m*lested was because u had just gotten a boyfriend ur own age,” she wrote.
“for the longest time i thought it was embarrassing for ME that i was interacting with this older man but he was the one who DM’d me on twitter and was the one who was twice my age and was the one that used the power imbalance between us to his advantage so f*ck chris d’elia,” Simoné added. “i am also definitely not the only underage girl he did this too. just an FYI.”
“for the longest time i thought this was just a funny story to tell at parties when i realized what happened isn’t normal and that he was and could still be doing this to younger girls and it’s my job to say something,” she wrote.
After Simoné’s thread, allegations began to pour in—including from members of the comedy world. The Twitter account She Rates Dogs, which normally posts stories from women about their exes, shared a thread in which multiple women, many of whom were teenagers at the time they allegedly interacted with D’Elia, shared their own stories about the comedian.
Comedian Emma Arnold retweeted the She Rates Dogs thread and wrote, “When I was a brand new comic, one of Delia’s best friends warned me to never send Chris nudes bc he made them into memes and showed to other male comics at shows. Looks like some of those memes were probably of underage girls. No wonder I don't miss comedy yet.”
Added comedian and Tinder Live creator Lane Moore, “who could’ve known Chris D'Elia was a creep other than anyone who's ever looked at him or heard him say things.”
“y’all would rather keep hiring male comedians who are known creeps than just put more women on your shows and it speaks VOLUMES,” Moore wrote. “fyi this isnt even about the latest guy,” she added. “there are so many. when I first moved to NYC i had some truly heinous shit happen to me via a male comic. When I told other comics they said ‘eh let it go. He does that to all the girls.’ I will never forget ‘he does that to all the girls.’”
Moore also shared a video in which D’Elia said, “You ever see a fucking 14-year-old? She looks 30.”
Comedian Leah Knauer also posted a thread recalling an encounter with D’Elia when she was a young aspiring comic.
When Knauer was 19—which, she noted, was legal age—D’Elia allegedly began emailing with her, requesting nudes and sending “lewd emails & texts.” They met up one night, she said, and his energy “was very dark and creepy.”
“I remember he even got mad at me for ‘ringing the doorbell wrong,’” she wrote, “so our first face-to-face interaction was him scolding me. After a few minutes of talking, I told him I was a virgin.” At that point, she said, his “eyes lit up” as he asked if that meant sex would hurt her. “Then I got immediately creeped TF out and scared he was going to hurt me,” she wrote.
“Even though I was of legal age and consented to going over there, he was predatory and tbh scary,” Knauer concluded. “I’ve seen him many times around LA since and he's never recognized me - probably because I’m” ... “just one girl out of a LOT. I was literally waiting for his name to come out during the Me Too movement, but better late than never.”
Canadian comedian Olivia Stadler added an account of her own: at age 21, she said, she agreed to meet D’Elia at a bar—and at the last minute, she switched their meet-up to his hotel bar. When she arrived, Stadler said D’Elia asked her to come to his room—and stopped responding once she declined.
D’Elia’s managers did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. In addition to his You character, who drugs and takes nude photos of women and young girls, D’Elia also played pedophile Topher in an episode of Comedy Central’s Workaholics.
