Chris D’Elia Accused of ‘Grooming’ Underage Girls & Asking for Nude Photos

Simone Rossi is a legislative intern and Arizona State graduate who claims to have had an online interaction with comedian Chris D’Elia in 2015. Rossi says D’Elia “groomed” her for a sexual interaction, and said the only reason she and D’Elia did not get involved is because she had a boyfriend at the time. These comments by Rossi have since set off a chain reaction of dozens of stories by other women about alleged interactions with D’Elia over the years. D’Elia is a comedian and actor known for his Netflix specials, podcast, and standup routines. His most recent Netflix special, No Pain, came out in April. He has not responded to any of these claims yet.

Rossi’s tweet came about when she pointed out what she perceived to be the “irony” of D’Elia being cast in the second season of the Netflix series You. She wrote, “I still can’t believe netflix cast chris d’elia as the pedophile in season to of ‘you’ like the literal IRONY”

She added in a subsequent tweet, “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”

Countless other stories have since been posted to Twitter. One woman tweeted of D’Elia, “He’s trash. He put me on the list at a venue to see him perform and casually said I could then meet him in his car behind the building and suck his [expletive]. I made up an excuse and never showed up.”

Here’s what you need to know:

Rossi Says D’Elia DMed Her in 2015 & Knew She Was in High School

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 pic.twitter.com/xq7XDrat8i

— simoné (@girlpowertbh) June 16, 2020

According to her LinkedIn, Rossi is a recent graduate of Arizona State University, with a degree in political science. You can read her full thread about D’Elia here.

Rossi claims D’Elia DMed her in 2015 while she was in high school, after she tweeted about some of his jokes. She shared what appears to be a screenshot of parts of her conversation with the comedian, in which he asks for a picture and she sends him a picture of a panda. It’s not clear how the alleged conversation started or ended.

At one point, Rossi 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*ck chris d’elia”

She added in  another tweet, “…i realized what happened isn’t normal and that he was and could still be doing this to younger girls and it’s my job to say something”

Simone Rossi Twitter

A Twitter sleuth has since dug up an old tweet of D’Elia’s which shows that he was in Arizona during the exact time that he would have been talking to Rossi, per her screenshots. Rossi was enrolled at Arizona State University at the time.

D’Elia has not responded to Rossi’s story.

A Wave of Stories About D’Elia Have Been Shared in the Wake of Rossi’s Accusation

Geez this one includes blackmail pic.twitter.com/9YFszaIQY4

— SheRatesDogs (@SheRatesDogs) June 17, 2020

A few hours after Rossi tweeted her story about D’Elia, the Twitter account SheRatesDogs started a Twitter thread of alleged accusations against D’Elia, all of which are from anonymous senders. The account started the thread by tweeting, “This is crazy because I’ve literally had this sent to me about Chris D’Elia as well.”

The thread goes on for several tweets. All of the submitted stories are anonymous, which is standard protocol for SheRatesDogs. In one story, a woman said she got in touch with D’Elia after tweet-quoting some of his jokes, and that D’Elia offered to fly her out to LA to “hook up.”

“I never answered after that but it was weird,” the woman wrote to SheRatesDogs.

D’Elia has not responded to any of the stories in this thread, either.

Two more- one 16 one 19, all teenagers pic.twitter.com/t0JjRKapD9

— SheRatesDogs (@SheRatesDogs) June 17, 2020

Other users have since tweeted their own D’Elia stories outside of the SheRatesDogs thread. One user tweeted, “although i’ve been publicly saying it for years, F*CK Chris D’elia. he solicited nudes off of me when i was 17 years old and constantly messaged me whenever he was touring vancouver and asked me to come backstage to his shows.”

A female comedian named Emma Arnold tweeted, “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.”