Chris D’Elia denies claims of him ‘preying’ on underage girls

Actor and comedian Chris D’Elia has rejected allegations of his involvement with underage girls after he got ensnared in controversy on Wednesday.

Talking to TMZ, the 40-year-old comic and actor said that he may have done things that could have caused offence to many people, but preying on teenage girls is not one of them.

“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,” he said.

“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,” he added.

While he had denied the allegations, the actor still issued an apology for being “dumb.”

Earlier on Wednesday, screenshots of his conversations had been making rounds on the internet where he had allegedly sent inappropriate texts to then-16-year-old Simone Rossi, who shared the pictures on social media.

D’Elia had essayed the role of child molester on Netflix’s widely-famous series You.

“Like the literal IRONY,” Rossi tweeted as she exposed the screenshots.

“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 [you] had just gotten a boyfriend [of your] own age [sic],” she said.

“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,” she added.

Soon after, another woman named Abby Grills stepped forward and shared more screenshots of her conversations with the comedian while she was 17 and he was 30.

“Gimme yer # again!” his alleged text read. “You’re insistent! why?” she had replied.

“Because I like you. Duh. And plus, you know you kinda like it. Sooooooo what is it?” he had said.

“Sorryyy. I mean you’re 30 and all,” she shot back.

Sharing the messages, Grills wrote on Twitter: “What’s really weird to me looking back at these is that in my head, he didn’t know I was 17 until I told him to stop messaging me. But I now see I told him several times. I had been giving him the benefit of the doubt all these years.”