Content Advisory: The following article contains descriptions of sexual coercion that readers may find disturbing.
In the wake of a recent Rolling Stone investigation into Chris D’Elia detailing allegations by at least ten women – some underage – that the comedian emotionally manipulated, abused, and coerced them into sex, the Internet is looking back at the long public history of D’Elia and his friends joking about his predilections on podcasts, as well as his history of getting cast as a sexual predator in multiple TV shows, including You.
In 2019 D’Elia appeared in a three-episode guest arc in the second season of the Netflix show You, about a stalker/serial killer. In the arc, D’Elia plays Henderson, a standup comedian/movie star with a history of grooming and assaulting underage girls.
Jenna Ortega’s character, 15 year-old Ellie, forms a friendship with D’Elia’s character and is invited over to his house under the pretext that he wants to watch her student film. He attempts to drug her, and is thwarted by the heroic serial killer/stalker star of the show, who then murders him following the revelation that he also assaulted Ellie’s older sister.
Below is a scene from the series, in which D’Elia’s character attempts to drug Ortega’s:
In 2020 – the first time credible reports of D’Elia’s predatory behavior surfaced – Deadline broke the story that producers on You reached out to Ortega to make sure that she “felt safe,” in other words to make sure nothing had happened to her on set. According to star Penn Badgley:
“You know… the first thing our producers did was reach out to Jenna [Ortega], who played Ellie, the girl opposite Chris in those scenes, just to make sure she felt safe.”
“I would hope that at least our show is not serving to uphold these kind of, like, bunk ways of being and these systems… So, you know, that’s as much as I think I can and should say, you know?”
Comedy Central also removed an episode of Workaholics in which D’Elia played a child predator whom the friends tolerate because he gives them weed.