Over the years comedian Chris D’Elia has been the subject of controversy, and has been replaced in multiple projects because of it. Back in 2020, D’Elia was removed from the zombie heist movie Army of the Dead and was replaced by comedian Tig Notaro due to sexual misconduct allegations. This big change was widely reported as Deborah Snyder called it a "daunting" task, and the reshoots with Notaro consisted of her only working with one actor because it was during the pandemic. On top of that, the allegations about D'Elia were very serious, and multiple women have spoken out about him since. Now, another woman has come forward, speaking about how he would ask her to record herself on her knees calling herself “nothing.”
Ten women have shared the traumatic stories of their involvement with Chris D’Elia, known for his Netflix comedy specials like Man on Fire and No Pain. One of the women who spoke to Rolling Stone about her trauma was 28-year-old Jazzmyn Wollfe who said D’Elia allegedly expected his “girls” to send over specific videos and photos of themselves as soon as he asked for them or he would reportedly threaten to emotionally abuse or ignore them. A frequent request he made Wollfe explained was to record herself getting down on her knees calling herself “nothing.”
I began to actually believe [I was ‘nothing’] and lose such a sense of myself as an individual person because you can only hear something so many times before you start to internalize that.
Jazzmyn Wollfe and Chris D’Elia met back in March 2020 when she responded to one of his Instagram stories during the early days of the pandemic, needing a distraction from living with her estranged husband. She was familiar with his work on the show Whitney and his guest-starring role on Season 2 of Netflix’s You. Within minutes, D’Elia responded and their conversation moved to Snapchat where the Undateable actor allegedly requested nude photos from Wollfe which she obliged. Feeling like she could relate to D’Elia’s similar living situation of him having to live with his partner Kristin Taylor and their newborn. The two began to talk to each other every day sending back-to-back Snapchat videos.
When the predatory allegations against Chris D’Elia were starting to surface in 2020, Jazzmyn Wollfe and another accuser who goes by Emma explained that their relationship with D’Elia began to intensify and got worse. They claimed his controlling nature went to the extremes of tracking their locations, telling them what to wear, giving curfews, and even telling them to tattoo his initials. They claimed they were expected to be glued to their phones to fulfill every request he gave them which left them isolated from their friends and family and even rushing to public restrooms to do what he said.
Wollfe said that she would try to break things off with D’Elia, but alleges he would make suicidal statements to get her to stay with him saying she was the only one who would understand him. In a YouTube video released this past December called The Chris D’Elia Problem, Wollfe said she was developing anxiety due to his many requests. Her mental health caused her eating disorder to relapse, and she dropped an unhealthy 100 pounds due to D’Elia ordering her to stay skinny despite him knowing she had body image issues in the past. Once Wollfe was fully aware of the extent of D’Elia’s relationships with other women, she broke it off with him in 2022 and hopes other women are able to heal from this.
These are real people who have gone through, and in some cases, are currently going through such a deep rewiring process due to the abuse they experienced. They deserve acknowledgment. They deserve to feel OK about sharing their experience, and I hope that through the truth coming to light they are able to find that. Men in positions such as Chris’s will continue the same pattern of behavior as long as they get away with it. I hope that in Chris’s case, that ends now.
Chris D’Elia had remained silent since The Chris D'Elia Problem video came out. Jazzmyn Wollfe has said she hasn’t heard from the Life in a Year actor ever again except in a podcast where D’Elia said he entered rehab back in November and was expecting his second child who was born earlier this month.
