The exchange itself was short. Courtney Stodden posted about a 2012 Funny or Die sketch filmed when she was 17 and Jason Alexander was 52. Alexander responded with a statement: looking back at it, he said, he completely agrees it was inappropriate, and he truly regrets it.
That is a clean apology, offered quickly, without qualification. Stodden’s reply to The Daily Beast was equally short: she hopes it becomes more than just words.
Which is where this stops being a celebrity story, because the thing she keeps returning to is not the sketch. It is the paperwork underneath it.
The point underneath the apology
Stodden’s account of that day centres on a single structural fact: she was the only person in the room who could not legally decide anything. Adults signed the contracts. The payment went to her then-husband. She was there because the people with legal authority over her had arranged it.
None of that was a loophole. It is how the law treats a married minor, and it is why the marriage matters more than the sketch does.
The marriage, and why it was lawful
Stodden married actor Doug Hutchison in 2011. She was 16. He was 51. It was legal, with parental consent.
That combination — a minor, an adult decades older, a consenting parent, and a valid licence — is not a historical curiosity. It describes a category of marriage that remains available across most of the United States today.
Where the law stands in 2026
| 33 states | Still allow marriage under 18, via parental consent or judicial waiver |
| 3 states | Set no absolute minimum age once waivers are applied |
| 17 states | Have made it 18 with no exceptions — Oklahoma became the seventeenth in May 2026 |
| ~300,000 | Children married in the US between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls married to adult men. |
The direction of travel is one way, and it is slow. Roughly one state a year has closed the exception since the first ban passed. On that pace the remaining thirty-three take decades.
Why campaigners target the exception rather than the age. Almost every state already says 18. The under-18 marriages happen through the exceptions — parental consent and judicial waiver — which sit in a different part of the statute. This is why “the legal age here is 18” and “a 16-year-old can be married here” are both routinely true of the same state, and why bills are written as “18 with no exceptions” rather than simply setting an age.
Why a minor cannot easily undo it
The part that surprises people is what happens after the licence is signed. A married minor is still a minor for most purposes — and in many states that means limited ability to file for divorce independently, to sign a lease, or to enter a domestic violence shelter that requires legal adulthood.
So the exception does not only permit the marriage. It can also make leaving it substantially harder than entering it was. That asymmetry is the core of the legislative argument, and it is a legal point rather than a moral one.
What “more than words” would mean
Alexander apologised for something he did. Stodden has been consistent that the apology she wants attaches to something larger — a set of rules that made a 16-year-old’s marriage and a 17-year-old’s contract entirely routine.
Those rules are not in Hollywood’s hands. They sit in thirty-three state legislatures, in a clause most people have never read, and they are still there.
Jason Alexander’s statement that the 2012 sketch was inappropriate and that he regrets it, Courtney Stodden’s Instagram post and her comment to The Daily Beast that she hopes it becomes more than words, and the ages of both at the time of filming were reported by Variety, Deadline, CBC News and The Daily Beast in 2026. Stodden married Doug Hutchison in 2011 at the age of 16; he was 51. The figures on state law — marriage under 18 legal in 33 states, three states with no absolute minimum age, and nearly 300,000 children married in the US between 2000 and 2018 — are from Equality Now, whose page was current as of 18 May 2026. Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 504, adopted in May 2026, is reported as making it the seventeenth state to set 18 with no exceptions. This article summarises reported statements and publicly documented law; it is not legal advice, and readers should check the current statute in their own state, as these provisions are amended frequently.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What did Jason Alexander apologise for?
A 2012 Funny or Die comedy sketch he filmed with Courtney Stodden when she was 17 and he was 52. After she posted about it, he said in a statement that he completely agrees it was inappropriate and that he truly regrets it.
What was Courtney Stodden’s response?
She told The Daily Beast she hopes it becomes more than just words. Her own posts focused less on the sketch itself than on the fact that, as a minor, she had no legal say — the contracts were signed by adults and the payment went elsewhere.
How old was Courtney Stodden when she married?
She was 16. Her husband, actor Doug Hutchison, was 51. The marriage took place in 2011 with parental consent, and it was lawful.
Is child marriage still legal in the United States?
Yes, in most of it. Equality Now records marriage under 18 as legal in 33 states through parental consent or judicial waiver. Three states set no absolute minimum age at all once waivers are applied.
How many states have banned it outright?
A minority. Oklahoma became the seventeenth state to set 18 as the minimum with no exceptions when Senate Bill 504 was adopted in May 2026. The count has risen steadily but slowly.
How many minors have been married in the US?
Nearly 300,000 children were married in the United States between 2000 and 2018, according to Equality Now, which notes the vast majority were girls married to adult men.
