Chris D'Elia: What to Know About the 'You' Star and Comedian

Early Life/Family

D'Elia is the son of interior decorator Ellie D'Elia and TV producer and director Bill D'Elia. The family patriarch is most well-known for his work on classic and beloved shows such as Doogie Howser, M.D., Beverly Hills, 90210, Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal, and How to Get Away with Murder.

D'Elia was born in Montclair, New Jersey, where he was raised until the family to Los Angeles, California when he was 12. D'Elia graduated from La Cañada High School in 1998, and he has an older brother, Matt, who is a filmmaker and actor.

Stand-Up and Podcasting

D'Elia acted first and then started doing stand-up comedy in 2006. In a 2011 interview, he categorized himself as "a stand-up comedian that acts as well." Early on, he was featured on television stand-up showcases Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, Comedy Central Presents, and Showtime's Live Nude Comedy. In December 2013, D'Elia's first one-hour stand-up special, White Male Black Comic, debuted on Comedy Central.

D'Elia also got into podcasting, which he has been doing since around 2012, when he co-hosted the Ten Minute Podcast, with Bryan Callen and Will Sasso. Since February 2017, he has hosted Congratulations with Chris D'Elia, a weekly podcast that has regularly been a Top 20 hit across the globe.

Netflix Specials

D'Elia eventually took his stand-up presence over to Netflix, where he released three specials, the first of which was 2015's Incorrigible. In 2017, D'Elia released Man On Fire, which quickly became one of the most popular specials of the year. Earlier this year, D'elia dropped his third Netflix special, titled No Pain. His father directed all four of his specials, including his 2013 Comedy Central special.

Acting Career

D'Elia started acting when he was a teenager, landing a small two-episode role on Chicago Hope, which his father worked on. He would later go on to have small parts on shows such as Boston Legal and Monk, in the early 2000s.

In 2010, he landed a main role on the short-lived TBS dramady Glory Daze, and then later co-stared on Whitney with fellow stand-up comedian Whitney Cummings, until its cancellation in 2013. The next year, he got a lead role on Undateable. That show was cancelled in 2016, after three seasons. D'Elia played a recurring character, Kenny, on Season 1 of The Good Doctor, and then in 2019, appeared in Season 2 Netflix's You.

Eminem Parody

A major moment in D'elia's career was when he did an impression of Eminem on his Congratulations podcast. The response was so great that he later posted videos of his impression, all of which went viral. Eminem saw one of the clips and shared, praising D'Elia's imitation by joking that for a second he "actually thought" it was himself. D'Elia later made the impression in the 2019 music video for "Homicide," which was a joint track between Eminem and Logic.

Sexual Harassment Accusations

In June 2020, accusations began to emerge on social media that D'Elia had sexually harassed a number of underage girls. There have also been accusations of grooming and soliciting nude photos of some of the girls involved.

According to Vulture, the first accusations came from a woman named Simone Rossi, who shared screenshots of alleged email communications between herself and D'Elia. After social media users began to take notice, other women began to share stories alleging that D'Elia had also sexually harassed them when they were underage. D'Elia has since addressed the accusations against him with TMZ, denying the allegations and admitted he has "never knowingly pursued any underage woman at any point."

'You' & 'Workaholics'

In the wake of the sexual harassment allegations, some have taken notice that it is ironic that D'Elia's role in You was so similar to his real life. In Season 2 of the romantic thriller, D'Elia played Henderson, a wildly popular comedian and actor who has a history of pedophilia and sexual misconduct with underage girls. Notably, this was not the first time that D'Elia played a role like this, as in 2011 he appeared on the Comedy Central sitcom Workaholics, playing a character named Topher who turns out to be a pedophile.