Jerry Seinfeld’s recent return to the spotlight has been a mixed bag. It let him promote his new Netflix comedy, Unfrosted,” but he’s also become one of the high-profile celebrities at the center of national debate because of his vocal support for Israel as that country wages war on Gaza.
Seinfeld faced a student walk-out while delivering a commencement speech at Duke University last weekend, while his wife, Jessica Seinfeld, ignited controversy for bankrolling a pro-Israel counterprotest at UCLA, which preceded a violent attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment, as the Daily Beast reported.
And now, Seinfeld is being reminded of the “problematic” relationship he had with a teen-age girl in the 1990s, before he met his wife, according to another Daily Beast report.
Seinfeld’s controversial romance with Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss — who was a high school student whom he met in Central Park in 1993 when she was 17 and he was 38 — has seen renewed interest on social media, the Daily Beast said. Seinfeld and Lonstein Gruss, now a clothing designer, dated for four years, with the romance continuing as she started college at George Washington University, then transferred to UCLA, and he starred in his hit NBC sitcom, “Seinfeld.”
According to the Daily Beast, social media references to the romance have popped up in response to X posts about the Duke University walk-out, Seinfeld’s support for Israel, or photographs of him visiting a West Bank military camp with his family in 2018. Some people have accused him of “grooming” Lonstein Gruss.
Madeline Pendleton, an author, podcaster and pro-Palestinian activist, also wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “This year I’ll be turning the same age Jerry Seinfeld was when he dated that 17 year old and I’m trying to imagine how badly (expletive) up my life would have to be for ‘I’m going to pick up my girlfriend from high school’ to seem normal to me.” In response to Pendleton’s post, someone said, “When Jerry was 21 his wife wasn’t born yet.”
The Daily Beast said that Seinfeld’s representatives declined requests for comment on the renewed interest in his relationship with Lonstein Gruss. Her representatives did not return request for comment.
Back in 1994, Seinfeld characterized the relationship as serious and “proper” in an interview with People. “Shoshanna is a person, not an age,” he said. “She is extremely bright. She’s funny, sharp, very alert. We just get along. You can hear the click.” For her part, Lonstein Gruss said she just wanted to continue enjoying a “normal life and just go about being a student.”
In 1998, Seinfeld addressed the relationship after it ended – and as his hit sitcom, “Seinfeld,” was nearing its series finale, the Daily Beast said. He told Vanity Fair that he once considered marrying Lonstein Gruss.
“I know everyone looked at that relationship as here’s this rich TV guy and here’s this young, hot girl, but it wasn’t like that at all,” he said. “We were very much in love, but the timing wasn’t quite right.”
The Daily Beast reported that the stories from People, Vanity Fair and other outlets in the 1990s tended to “normalize” Seinfeld’s romance with a minor. People magazine reported that her parents approved of the relationship, while saying that the romance “sure sounds like fun.” People said the comedian flew Lonstein Gruss to Florida when he performed in a black-tie New Year’s Eve show. He also was known to take her on shopping forays to Giorgio Armani in L.A. and Ralph Lauren in Manhattan.
“Mostly, though, Seinfeld and Lonstein do what the characters on his sitcom do: nothing,” People said. “Jerry’s biggest pleasure,” a longtime friend said, “is staying home, watching a ball game and eating a pizza.”
Such normalization probably wouldn’t be the case today. The #MeToo movement has raised awareness about the potential for harm and abuse of power in relationships between prominent older men men and much younger females, including under-aged girls.
One high-profile media figure who didn’t normalize the relationship at the time was shock-jock Howard Stern, even though he was friends with Seinfeld. During an interview on his radio show, Stern jokingly pressed Seinfeld on the age issue, saying, “So, you sit in Central Park and have a candy bar on a string and pull it when the girls come?”
During that interview, a flustered Seinfeld tried to insist that Lonstein was not actually 17, People reported. Seinfeld returned to Stern’s show a month later, sounding a bit defensive, saying, “I didn’t realize she was so young.” He also said he wasn’t dating her; they just went out to eat somewhere, and that was it.
But in fact, Seinfeld was dating her and the relationship continued, with his limousine becoming a familiar sight outside the Upper East Side apartment where Lonstein lived with her parents and brother, People reported.
Stern also continued to make jokes about his friend’s romance with a teenager, according to the Daily Beast. He labeled Seinfeld a “horny, lonely TV geek,” and Lonstein “jailbait,” in a song parody he performed at a New Year’s Eve Pageant. Stern and singer-songwriter Janis Ian crooned, “Seinfeld’s girl is seventeen” and followed up with lyrics about her figure and which asked, “Can’t he find girls his age to date?”
After the relationship ended in 1998, Seinfeld acknowledged to Vanity Fair that the difference in age and life experience was an obstacle. “She was starting out in life and I was finishing up a big chapter,” Seinfeld said, looking “blue,” according to Vanity Fair. He said, “The timing wasn’t quite right. But it was wonderful.”
That same year, Seinfeld met his wife Jessica, the Daily Beast reported. Once again, there was a notable age difference, though Jessica, at least, wasn’t a teenager. He was 45 and she was 28 when they married the following year.
