Comedian Chris D’Elia has been accused of sexually harassing and grooming multiple women when they were underage after a Twitter thread chronicling instances where he tried to solicit nudes from or meet up with teenaged fans went viral on Tuesday night.
A Twitter user named Simoné, who uses the handle @girlpowertbh, revealed that D’Elia — who, ironically, plays a pedophile on Netflix’s You — reached out to her in 2014 when she was just 16. “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*** chris d’elia,” she added. With that, the floodgates were open, and countless stories about D’Elia’s alleged sexual misconduct began circulating on social media.
One woman wrote: “F*** you @chrisdelia. You solicited nudes from minors while u were in Vancouver and tried to f*** my friend when we were 16, and when i called u out on twitter you told her you’d ruin her life if i didn’t delete it. absolute pedophile scumbag.”
Comedian Emma Arnold claimed that D’Elia would show other male comics nudes he had received, and the Twitter account @SheRatesDogs compiled and tweeted out a series of anonymous allegations about him. (You can read those in their entirety here.)
A clip from D’Elia’s podcast in which he discusses teen girls also was widely circulated. “You ever see a fucking 14-year-old?” D’Elia asks in the clip. “She looks 30! I’ve never seen – there’s no such thing as a 14-year-old girl anymore. They go from, like, six to 25.”
D’Elia has not yet responded to the allegations.
Chris D’elia talking about 14 year old girls pic.twitter.com/KpncTAAXwY
— Jake Taylor (@Jakertay) June 17, 2020
This is crazy bc I’ve literally had this sent to me about Chris Delia as well https://t.co/o05YWjIUqo pic.twitter.com/qbYQ7mIK6Z
— SheRatesDogs (@SheRatesDogs) June 17, 2020
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. https://t.co/G8vTtEc3d3
— Emma Arnold (@iamaroadtrip) June 17, 2020
Y’all be like sure we have 30 firsthand accounts, 100 other anonymous stories, video screen recordings, text/Snapchat/email/Instagram/Twitter screenshots, corroboration from female comics, character witnesses from people who worked at venues, but where is the PROOF
— SheRatesDogs (@SheRatesDogs) June 17, 2020
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