After Jonah Hill‘s ex-girlfriend recently shared a string of damning text messages sent by the actor, Alexa Nikolas told her own story about being forcibly kissed by Hill at a house party thrown by Justin Long. Nikolas said she was 16 years old at the time.
Now, a Reddit thread considering the various allegations against Hill — and questioning Long’s involvement as well — has dug up an old episode of Ashton Kutcher’s MTV series Punk’d wherein Long is the victim of a hidden-camera practical joke by Hill; a joke involving getting drunk with underage girls.
In the first segment of the episode, Long, his brother, and Hill meet up with some young women at a bar (actors in on the joke) who fail to produce their IDs when ordering a drink. Long looks uncertain but plows ahead with his night of partying. Then, a manager (also an actor in on the joke) comes to the table and asks for IDs from each patron. When the young women can’t produce any, the manager gets the women to admit that they are 17 and 18 years old, respectively.
In a series of tweets shared on the Reddit thread, Nikolas pointed out that Long recently portrayed a “predator” in Zach Cregger’s horror flick Barbarian, which is a sad bit of kismet for a guy who, according to Nikolas, hosted several 16-year-old minors at the house party. She noted that those minors were subjected to “predatory behavior” throughout the night.
It’s worth stressing that Long is never directly informed that the young women are underage before the manager intervenes. He tries his best to awkwardly flirt and seems a bit uncomfortable by how fast one of the young women is drinking and ultimately just seems flabbergasted by the situation.
As for Hill, he’s featured less in the clip but is responsible for setting up the ‘prank’. There is, of course, a world of difference between reality television and, well, reality, so the above isn’t exactly precognition of the recent accusations against Hill in any way, shape, or form. Not beyond poor taste in practical jokes, at least.
What we do have is Nikolas’ story and the texts released by Hill’s ex, Sarah Brady, who has also accused Hill of “emotional abuse.”
Whatever happens, let’s hope Hill and Long finally internalize the lesson that they should have learned years ago on MTV.