Alexa Nikolas elaborates on alleged sexual assault by Jonah Hill: 'It was like a joke that we were underage'
The former "Zoey 101" actress said she might have been younger than she first recalled.
Alexa Nikolas has revealed more details about an alleged encounter with Jonah Hill when she was a teenager. The former Zoey 101 star accused Hill of having "slammed me to the door and shoving his tongue down my throat" earlier this month. Nikolas said she was underage when it happened, during a party at actor Justin Long's home.
At the time, Hill denied Nikolas's recollection of events through his lawyer, Marty Singer, who said it "never happened." He referred to her story as a "complete fabrication," and he called her a "serial accuser" for making "assorted accusations against multiple men in the entertainment industry."
On Wednesday's episode of the H3 Podcast, Nikolas gave context on the night in question. Beginning with the fact that though she said in her tweets that she was 16, she later realized that she might have still been 15. (She turned 16 in April 2008, when Hill was 24 and Long was 29.)
Nikolas explained that she attended the party in the first place because her friend — a fellow teen whom she did not name — was dating Long's roommate, who was also older.
"They were grown-ass men," said Nikolas, who's now 31.
As the actress remembered it, she told her mom that she was sleeping at a friend's house. Nikolas said that, back then, she often snuck out and was always able to get into Los Angeles bars without having her ID checked.
At Long's party, her night began awkwardly as her friend and the friend's boyfriend went into his room. By that time, people, including Hill, were starting to show up.
"[My friend] eventually comes out. We all start drinking," Nikolas said. "They even make some kind of jokes about our age. I remember Jonah at one point being like, 'Can you even drink this?' and he was, like, pulling it away, then put it back to me. And so it was like a joke that we were underage."
"At one point I wanted a cigarette, and I didn't obviously have one because I couldn't buy one legally," Nikolas said. "So Jonah ends up saying, 'I have cigs but they're in my car,' and I was like, 'OK,' and I thought he was going to go and get it."
Things then took a turn, said Nikolas, the founder of the Eat Predators movement that seeks to call out sexual predators in the entertainment industry. "We were walking awkwardly back to the door, and I remember saying, 'Can I have one?' because we were outside. He didn't say anything, he just slams me across the door. I'll never forget it — you don't forget these things — he slammed me across the door and he just put his tongue right in my mouth. I just remember it moving around."
She described the moment as "really intense."
"I just remember being startled and kind of grossed out, and I tried to push him away. And I did, actually," Nikolas said. "He did end up backing away, and I remember turning around and running upstairs."
Nikolas said she avoided Hill after that.
"I stayed away; I did not like him. I didn't like that," she said. "He didn't apologize to me, and that was also pretty upsetting."
In response to Nikolas's new comments, Singer tells Yahoo Entertainment that "what Ms. Nikolas claims never happened. The Story is a complete fabrication by an unreliable source whose story materially changed over time. The Story is based on a source who is demonstrably unreliable. Significantly, Ms. Nikolas has changed her story, first claiming to have been 16 years old at the time of the alleged incident, and now claiming that she was 15."
Singer alleged that Nikolas is "a serial accuser who has made assorted accusations against multiple men in the entertainment industry. That includes a claim she made for 'sexual assault' against her ex-husband that she later voluntarily withdrew after she got some media attention."
Nikolas filed a lawsuit against Michael Milosh, the lead singer of Rhye and her husband from 2012 to 2016, in 2021. Per Rolling Stone, she had accused him of sexual abuse and grooming before dropping the suit last year, promising to refile it later. Milosh then sued Nikolas's attorneys for malicious prosecution, alleging that they knowingly filed a "frivolous" lawsuit. Milosh's suit was "stricken from the court" in February.
She has also spoken out about having had negative experiences while working on a Nickelodeon show as a child actor, when the network made her feel "unsafe."
A representative for Long did not respond to Yahoo's request for comment, but, after Nikolas first mentioned having attended a party at his home, a spokesperson commented to Page Six: "This is the first time Justin has been made aware of this situation that allegedly happened nearly two decades ago. While Justin is sympathetic to any and all victims of any abuse, the simple fact remains he has no knowledge of what may or may not have happened concerning Ms. Nikolas."
Nikolas originally revealed the allegations against Hill after his ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady spoke out about her relationship with him, which she referred to as "emotionally abusive." Brady had shared alleged text messages between the two that included him telling her that she could not violate his "boundaries," which included modeling, surfing with men or having friendships with unstable women, if she wanted to be his romantic partner.
