Comedian Chris D’Elia has been accused of sexually harassing and grooming multiple underaged girls, according to reports.
D’Elia was an outspoken critic of the “conspiracy theory” that pedophiles run Hollywood. Just two months ago, D’Elia posted a video to YouTube in which he ranted against the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and slammed those who claimed pedophiles run the entertainment industry.
“Dude, There is NO Fucking Pizzagate Man!!” Chris D’Elia said in the video.
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Now, the actor and comedian is being accused of grooming underage girls in a Twitter thread.
According to screenshots posted by user Simone Rossi, D’Elia engaged in a discussion with her in 2014 when she was just 16 years old. Rossi claims she was “groomed” by the stand-up comic.
Decider.com reports: Decider has reached out to D’Elia for additional comment. Netflix declined to comment on the allegations, but Decider has confirmed that D’Elia’s character, who dies in the second season, will not appear in You Season 3.
Last night, Rossi, who goes by the handle @girlpowertbh, posted screenshots depicting a conversation between herself and someone who appears to be D’Elia. The July 2014 conversation appears to show D’Elia requesting “a pic” from Rossi, who says she was just 16 at the time. “I still can’t believe Netflix cast Chris D’Elia as the pedophile in Season [2] of You like the literal irony,” she wrote in the thread.
In subsequent tweets, Rossi wrote that she was “groomed by a stand up comedian twice [her] age,” but never met up with the comic because she ultimately got “a boyfriend [her] own age.” She added that D’Elia “was the one who DM’d me on Twitter” and “used the power imbalance between us to his advantage.” Wrote Rossi, “I am also definitely not the only underage girl he did this to … Fuck you Chris D’Elia and also Netflix I highly doubt casting this creep as a pedophile was a coincidence.”
D’Elia appears in You Season 2 as Joshua “Henderson” Bunter, a well-known stand-up comedian. Henderson is revealed to be a violent pedophile, and when Joe (Penn Badgley) sees him drug his 15-year-old neighbor’s drink, Joe knocks him down the stairs, killing him.
Shortly after Rossi’s Twitter thread went viral, other women voiced similar allegations about D’Elia. The She Rates Dogs account shared a screenshot of a conversation about D’Elia in which an anonymous user claims that “in early 2018,” the comic “exposed himself” to a female hotel employee who was called to fix his AC unit. Another user alleged that D’Elia “solicited nudes from minors in Vancouver and tried to fuck my friend when we were 16.”