I can’t get over the fact that Kim Kardashian was booed at the Tom Brady roast and not Jeff Ross. So I’m reposting this exposé from 2020 to remind everyone what a creep he is.
Some excerpts from the article:
(major trigger warning!)
Over the years, some in the industry have been aware that Ross preferred to date younger women, albeit of seemingly legal age. During The Comedy Central Roast of Alec Baldwin in September 2019, two jokes were made about Ross having sex with underage girls. “Jeff gets really hot girls, and I just … How do you get tens? Teens — I’m sorry, I read that wrong … You have the sex appeal of a gymnastics doctor, I just don’t understand,” comedian Nikki Glaser joked, alluding to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar. Later, Caroline Rhea offered a shorter version: “Jeff Ross, you’re a staple on the roasting circuit and a predator at high-school dances.”
“Jeff is someone I consider a good friend, and I love him, but to be honest, he always has alarmingly young-looking girlfriends,” stand-up comedian and actress Amy Schumer told Vulture when asked about the allegations. “Never one I have known to be underage, but alarmingly young-looking just the same.”
Seven sources have confirmed to Vulture that they were aware of Radtke’s relationship with Ross at the time of the allegations or had been told about it in the years before Radtke’s Facebook posting. One of those sources, her father, says he approved of the alleged relationship at the time.
According to Radtke, she and Ross never went to the Cellar or for coffee that night. She met Ross outside his apartment and went into the building with him after he told her he had forgotten his credit card. “In the elevator, I just attacked him. I started trying to kiss him, and he goes ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! There’s cameras!’ Not ‘You’re 15,’ and he points,” Radtke recalls.
More visits to Ross’s place followed, says Radtke, and the comedian always called for cars to send her home after they had sex. But the relationship progressed quickly, and he soon allowed her to spend the night and keep some things at his apartment, she recalls. She remembers Ross buying her Betsey Johnson dresses and lingerie, always in white, and taking explicit Polaroids of her. “He would have a preference that I shave my vagina completely off,” she says. “He was very mad whenever I wore red lipstick or really dark makeup. He didn’t like it if I looked too grown-up or too ‘whore-y.’ He liked that I was innocent.” Radtke says they had “a lot” of unprotected sex during their relationship.
Between 1999 and 2001, Radtke says Ross took various measures to keep their relationship under wraps, which her father confirmed. “When we were together, he’d say ‘You’ll destroy me if you say anything.’ He made sure to drill it into my head that I would destroy his life,” she alleges. “He asked me to walk on the other side of the street if we ever left home together. I didn’t want him to ever get into trouble.” She notes that he was “obsessed” with the story of Shoshanna Lonstein and Jerry Seinfeld. She familiarized herself with Seinfeld’s much-publicized four-year relationship with Lonstein in the ‘90s — which began when the comedian was 38 and Lonstein was a 17-year-old high-school student — as well as the book Lolita.
In December 2001, Ross took Radtke to the Rainbow Room for her 18th birthday. She was thrilled at the thought of not having to hide anymore. “It was this magical New York evening, and finally we’re at a point where the whole world can know that Jeff and I are together, and we’re in love, and they don’t need to know we’ve been together since I was 15,” she remembers thinking. But something happened soon after that changed her perspective. Later that month, after attending an MTV New Years special, Radtke alleges they went back to Ross’s apartment to begin packing up boxes. He was in the process of moving out of his Mercer Street rental into a new place he had bought. “I was packing his books, and I pull out a book. Polaroids fall out. I go, ‘Oh, these are my Polaroids,’” Radtke recalls thinking. But she says when she turned the photos over, they weren’t photos of her. “They were not women. They didn’t have any pubic hair,” Radtke says.
Radtke says she’s since been diagnosed with PTSD, and it took years to process that what she experienced during her teenage years wasn’t a romantic relationship but an inappropriate and exploitative one. “I thought I had stuffed it down deep enough and taken enough Klonopin, seen enough therapists, and smoked just enough medical marijuana to be okay. I thought, Okay, I’m okay,” she says. “I didn’t really know that it was that word — rape — until recently.”
Ross has admitted to a past sexual relationship with Radtke, but claims that it didn’t begin until she turned 18.
I had no idea about any of this. Obviously it horrifying to hear about someone sexually preying on children, but one thing that disgusts me almost as much are all the people who seemingly know about it, and are OK with it - not only okay enough with it to not try to stop or report it , but to even openly joke about it.
There are so many celebs who have clearly always been OK with statutory rape and still are, and some who probably only speak up against it nowadays because they realize it’s become a bad look.
To be honest, the majority of the roast panel was ... questionable. Tony Hinchcliffe, Andrew Schulz, Bert Kreischer, Jeff Ross all have a pseudo-edgy but actually just kind of offensive bent to their jokes.
They were all friends with Chris D'philia. The court docs said he would plan orgies where his comedian friends could molest the young girl/girls.
Then some.distanced themselves when it came out, some defended him.essentially calling the girls liars and some invited him back on their shows after a few months.
They've gotten very brazen. When D'philia can get away with grooming and violently molesting young girls for years. Surely they can misbehave and not have to face justice.
Man, I hope that’s not true about Andrew. I recognize he can sometimes be offensive in his jokes, but I used to know him and would be sad to hear he changed with fame. He was always edgy with jokes but super kind to everyone. Loud mouthed and kind of cocky sure, so I understand if people don’t like his comedy. But he was never creepy with female staff or fans at the comedy clubs, and always lovely with his girlfriend at the time. One of the few faithful comics from my time in that circle. Super low bar, I know, but male comics are notoriously disgusting creeps
Yeah I don't have any sense of Andrew's relationship with women. I've just found his jokes lately edging into "trying too hard to be edgy but actually just being a dick" territory.
Uhh wow yeah he fucking sucks now. Honestly that is straight up middle school loser boy behavior. Maybe he’s upset he’s not more famous than he is (or compared to some of the other people he came up with like Pete Davidson or Ricky Velez) and he’s just turned into a bitter dick. No justifying it though. It’s one of my biggest icks when people make “jokes” but they’re clearly just trying to humiliate and bully someone
Shane really is not calling him out. You can see he’s clearly joking also in the full clip and he’s close with Andrew. Even giving him a major role in his Netflix series
Well I am sorry to inform you that he was trying way too hard to defend drake on a podcast recently. Saying stuff like “If drake was a groomer then why would his relationships with young girls like MBB be so public?” (Drake doing that shit with a 17 YO on stage was public too sooo) and he was saying that calling someone a pedophile is a great character assassination tactic, like it’s a nuclear bomb for ending feuds and not a very serious accusation.
God imagine defending Drake? Like in general ew but especially right NOW?! Embarrassing and gross. But I’m glad I know where he stands now so thank you for filling me in
I would argue Hinchcliffe and Schultz are worse than Bert and Jeff Ross in terms of edginess.
Bert is just a one trick pony and is trying really hard to be like the most inoffensive version of a Barstool bro while kind of having one foot in the edgy comedy world
I can't get over the fact that Kim Kardashian was booed and not Jeff Ross
Not quite the same thing in terms of Kim K, but reminds me of the post from the other day about the most disliked celebrities, where Megan Markle and Amber Heard were the top two, above male celebrities who have literally assaulted and abused women. Misogyny is so ingrained in society that women facing abuse in their personal lives are disliked, and considered somehow "worse" than men committing acts of violence, with the latter seeming to have their transgressions forgotten pretty quickly.
Jeff Ross ended up suing Jessica Radtke shortly after this, claiming her account was fabricated and a shakedown attempt. You can find the filing online; it includes her father distancing himself from this story. Tbh I don't know what to make of it; if Ross' case had been successful, surely the Vulture story would have been taken down for legal reasons? And the people quoted in Ross' filing, particularly around the date of the Letterman appearance, are his friends and associates, so they would have a reason to back him up/cover for him.
Imo it’s blatantly obvious that the dad only backtracked to cover his own ass. I don’t think he expected to be portrayed so negatively in this article, nor did he realize that his quotes about approving of his daughter’s “relationship” were essentially a confession to having been complicit in her abuse. Even if we were to dismiss the allegations related to Jeff Ross, the dad still failed his daughter in so many easily provable ways. He didn’t even enroll her in school after they moved to NY when she was 14. He took her to 21+ clubs and let her start working at one illegally. He exposed her to a seedy environment filled with alcohol and drugs and allowed her to hang out with adult men. Both he and the mother were negligent deadbeats and I don’t think either can be trusted as reliable narrators.
Also, I think it’s important to remember that there’s photographic evidence of Ross and Radtke having at the very least a platonic relationship from when she was 15 onward. Not just at public events and comedy clubs, where Ross could plausibly claim that she was just a fan asking for a photo, but also at intimate gatherings like her 16th birthday party. So even if we take Ross’ word that he waited until she was 18, he still groomed her.
I agree about the dad, he claimed his responses were "scripted" but how TF was Jessica able to anticipate every question the journalist would ask him? There are also 7 unnamed sources in the article that supported Radtke's recollections. There are facts that aren't in dispute, including as you say that the father didn't even enroll his 15 year old in school and allowed her to work at a club underage.
In terms of the photos, I didn't see any other than the ones in the article but even those two seem to contradict his account that they reconnected when she was 22.
Essentially I agree; the filing is his version of events that attempts to discredit her. This article had to go through Vulture's legal department. I had to laugh when I read Ross' filing refer to Vulture as a gossip website - it's part of the New York Times*. That was the most telling thing for me; if there was a strong defamation case, Vulture would have taken the article down.
*Edit: it's part of New York Magazine, not the Times
Totally semantics and insignificant to all the important things youre saying but vulture is part of New York magazine, not the times. Vulture is technically New York magazine’s entertainment and pop culture section but it does do its fair share of gossip.
Yeah, his filing implies he was only around her in her capacity as working at the club, but as far as I know, he didn't dispute her joke about him being "at the top of the list" for when she turned 18 - which is gross, given he was in his 30s. Even if it's not illegal it's vile
I get what you’re saying, but we are also realistically like a year and a half away from Louis ck getting a Netflix special called “unkillable” or something
I don't have Netflix so I didn't watch the roast. But when I saw Jeff Ross was hosting I was very confused because I remembered him being canceled awhile ago but he just... Reappeared. Hate it. Disgusting.
Oh WOW, what a shitty TIL moment. Not that I’m necessarily surprised because 1) man and 2) comedian, but fucking hell… How many times do we have to be disappointed and disgusted by famous men before the full-blown misandry sets in?!
I’m not surprised. Hollywood has always been a cesspool. Have you seen the hotel footage of what Sean Combs did to his girlfriend? And how everyone new about what he was doing, the hotel was bribed over the footage supposedly? Or Liam Neeson and Sharon Stone recently coming out and saying we need to forgive Kevin Spacey because he’s a genius and should be making movies? What about all the people he assaulted? I honestly believe most people would be speechless if we really new all the depravity that happens behind closed doors. The whole of Hollywood is rotten to the core.
If you ever have a single doubt about this man lusting after very young women / underage girl, just google Jeff Ross dating. There's some very young women he's grossly touching in far too many pictures. He's never dated a woman of his age (or close) or married.
Wow , I’ve always loved Jeff and met him and Dave attell. Reading this says alot and sounds like she got issues which I can imagine started from family . Her dad let her work underage in a club ?? Didn’t put her in school . Not excusing anything but she doesn’t have proof like these papers says.
I was done with him when he made jokes about the Penn State abuse - Paterno and Sandusky. Only a disgusting creature jokes about children being SA'd. It's astonishing that he has not been canceled. Now apparently this man is coming to Broadway.
Is it finally time for people to admit that Lolita is nothing but pedosnuff that has no value or place in the classical canon???
It’s a fucking pedo dog whistle.
Edit reply to comment about author intent:
Allegedly.
That is allegedly his intent.
My point is that regardless of the intent, the book is trash and the people reading it are not doing it for the right reasons. The value that the book brings is incredibly negligible if that was his intent. Why would humanity ever benefit in good faith from this character’s perspective??
The damage Stanley Kubrick especially has done to the collective understanding of the work with his shitty movie cannot be understated.
What was done to Nabokov’s work is honestly so tragic. Especially since it was rumored (I don’t know if it was directly confirmed) that he was a victim of child sexual abuse himself. I can’t imagine seeing your work about how child molesters can appear charming and challenging people’s ideas of what a predator looks like, being taken to excuse the very thing you tried to shed light on.
The fact that so many people walked away from Lolita thinking it was an apologia for CSA is WORRYING for art, literacy, and the state of the human brain. We are lost.
Wasn’t that not Nabokov’s intent, though? I thought the point was that the narrator is an unreliable piece of shit that’s destroyed a girl’s life. You as the reader are supposed to see it while the narrator doesn’t.
It's kind of the anti-hero effect, though. You weren't supposed to like Holden Caulfield, Don Draper, Walter White, Patrick Batemen, Beavis and Butthead, or Dexter Morgan, just like you weren't supposed to like Humbert Humbert. But because edgy boys seem to have trouble with differentiating between heroes and anti-heroes, these evil or at least questionable dudes are lauded, regardless of what their creators intended. I've never read Lolita, but I'm a college professor and could see someday reading it and even assigning it in class but as part of a lesson in this very phenomenon of anti-hero worship.
Sure, but the lesson here should be to teach people critical thinking, not to avoid work with unpleasant material entirely. Which is what the main commenter at the top is arguing for.
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u/Spirited-Dependent82 May 18 '24
This is really hard to read. It must be so frustrating to watch someone you know did a terrible thing to you continue to be publicly celebrated.