When A 38-Year-Old Jerry Seinfeld Dated An Underage Girl

Jerry Seinfeld is back in the news. He recently released his Netflix Special “23 Hours to Kill”, which received mixed reviews, to say the least. However, a recent tweet of his caught my eye, or more importantly, a reply underneath that tweet. And as I investigated, it turns out that a 38-year-old Jerry Seinfeld once dated an underage 17-year-old girl named Shoshanna Lonstein! Here’s what happened.

Recently, Jerry Stiller, who played Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, passed away. Naturally, Jerry Seinfeld went on Twitter to pay his respects to Stiller. However, there was a tweet under his tribute that brought up something out of Seinfeld’s past:

https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/1259892543262580736?s=20

Okay, something like that very easily catches the eye. I mean, a 38-year-old Jerry Seinfeld dating an underage 17-year-old? That’s a big red flag, and a bit hard to imagine how something as serious as this didn’t catch everyone’s eye. But, the truth is that it did and it did not go unnoticed.

In 1993, Seinfeld dated a girl he met at a park, literally

Back then, Jerry Seinfeld was at the peak of his popularity. His show was on its way to the top, becoming one of the most celebrated shows on television. So, one day he decided to take a stroll in Central Park, and that’s when he met a girl. And by the word girl, we do mean a literal underage girl, who was a high school senior at the prestigious Nightingale-Bamford School.

At the time, Lonstein was only 17 years old, putting the two at a 21 year age difference! Not to mention that Lonstein herself was underage. However, the relationship continued and blossomed, and lasted for four years! After high school ended, Lonstein got her admission to George Washington University in Washington DC, but she transferred to UCLA after a year to be closer to Seinfeld in Los Angeles.

However, as soon as her degree ended, her relationship with Jerry Seinfeld did too. They called it quits, saying that the media pressure was too much for her to bear. So, this is how the story of Jerry Seinfeld dating a minor ended, with a 4-year long relationship that was in media headlines of the People. But, that doesn’t mean that Jerry Seinfeld got away with dating a minor without being called out.

Howard Stern did not go easy on him

Even though Jerry Seinfeld dating an underage girl happened way back in the early 90s, it was still frowned upon. I mean, it’s a 38-year-old TV star dating a 17-year-old, how could it not make the news? And it did. For instance, when Seinfeld came on the Howard Stern show, Stern specifically poked fun at how young Shoshanna Lonstein was:

So, you sit in Central Park and have a candy bar on a string and pull it when the girls come?

Usually, Seinfeld would be up and ready to answer such questions with sarcasm, but this time he was mellow:

She’s not 17, definitely not.

Of course, this wasn’t a satisfactory response to a very real question. So, Seinfeld came back on the show and said:

I didn’t realize she was so young. This is the only girl I ever went out with who was that young. I wasn’t dating her. We just went to a restaurant, and that was it.

Yeah, that seems a bit too hard to believe. Maybe this meant that Jerry Seinfeld dated her only after she turned 18? Of course, that still doesn’t erase their 21-year age gap. But Stern didn’t just stop there. In fact, he made a song about it! I’d have loved to type the lyrics to the song, but we don’t want to get demonetized (Yes, it’s that insane). Check it out!

Bobcat Goldthwait was even censored by Seinfeld

In Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Bridget Everett mentioned Goldthwait’s name, but it was censored out! This was because he had a long-time beef with Goldthwait, which began when Bobcat made this comment over Jerry Seinfeld’s underage girlfriend:

Here is this creepy Scientologist guy (dating) teenage girls — which I don’t care about one way or another. What I find creepy is that people are convinced he lives in that apartment, and those are his wacky friends. They don’t like each other; they’re actors paid to pretend they like Jerry Seinfeld. He’s a weird guy. But everybody thinks he’s normal and I’m weird.

Moreover, Seinfeld has defended his relationship with Shoshanna Lonsetin quite aggressively later on. In the People article, he said:

I am not an idiot. Shoshanna is a person, not an age. She is extremely bright. She’s funny, sharp, very alert. We just get along. You can hear the click.

But as we all know, the click didn’t last long and they both moved on. Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss made a big name for herself in the fashion industry and got married. And Jerry Seinfeld just played himself for a few more years and maintained his life in comedy.

However, there is no doubt that Jerry Seinfeld dating an underage girl would never have happened in 2020. Nope, not a chance. Apart from the chances of being jailed for statutory rape, he would easily have been canceled by the Hollywood fraternity. I mean, people barely spare Leonardo DeCaprio for dumping his girlfriends when they turn 25. How on Earth would Jerry Seinfeld be spared?!