Seinfeld is easily my all-time favorite show. I’m old enough that I watched it every week during its nine-season run on NBC, and I still watch it often today on Netflix. George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is who I relate to the most, and although Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) is the weakest of the characters, I’m a big fan of the man who played him. I’ve seen all of his comedy specials, read his books, and have been lucky enough to see him perform in person. Still, as much as I admire the guy, there’s still one thing that has always been hard to comprehend. During the height of Seinfeld‘s run, Jerry was, in real life, dating a 17-year-old still in high school and living with her parents.
Jerry Seinfeld Dated the Teenaged Shoshanna Lonstein
In 1993, the 39-year-old Jerry Seinfeld was the king of the TV world. His show, which had his name right there in the title, was in its fifth season and was the biggest thing on TV. Jerry was a household name everyone knew, which also meant he was under the constant gaze of the paparazzi. Despite living in Los Angeles, he could have hidden from the spotlight, but with his expensive car collection, he was often seen out on the town. And in 1993, he added a gorgeous girlfriend on his arm. Good for him, right? Well, the major problem was that Jerry was 39, and his new girlfriend, Shoshanna Lonstein, was only 17.
Jerry Seinfeld Met Shoshanna Lonstein in Central Park
While Jerry Seinfeld would be immediately cancelled (along with his series) if such a thing happened today, that wasn’t the case in the 1990s. Maybe you rolled your eyes at the news or thought it was a little weird, but it was just another male celebrity with a young girlfriend. It certainly didn’t hurt Jerry or the show, which only got bigger and bigger. As proof, one only has to look at the article People magazine did about it.
The headline, from March 1994, after Jerry and Shoshanna had been together for months, was “LOOK WHO’S IN LOVE” over an image of the smiling couple out together. Underneath was, “Jerry Seinfeld, 39, and Shoshanna Lonstein, 18, make an unlikely romance work.” Their relationship, in the most popular celebrity magazine, was called “unlikely” and that’s it. The People article revealed that the couple met in Central Park when Shoshanna was 17 and a senior at Manhattan’s Nightingale-Bamford School. Jerry asked for her number, she gave it, and they were soon dating. Not creepy at all…
After she turned 18, Seinfeld was on the Howard Stern Show. Howard had previously made fun of the relationship, Jerry now 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.” It’s up to you if you believe him or if you think that going on a date with a teenager and then later dating her isn’t a little fishy.
Jerry Seinfeld and Shoshanna Lonstein Dated Until 1997
People quoted Jerry saying of his girlfriend: “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… My interest in her is very proper.” With Lonstein turning 18, the two were seen out and about often. Seinfeld even took her as his date to the Emmys.
In 1997, Jerry and Shoshanna broke up. Lonstein landed on her feet, despite losing her celebrity status, opening her own NYC clothing line named Shoshanna, the next year. A 2016 Forbes article about Lonstein said that the line “remains at the forefront of the industry” two decades after it began. While she has talked about her personal life and her later marriage and family, she has not talked publicly about dating Jerry Seinfeld.
Jerry’s controversial relationships didn’t stop with Lonstein. A year after the breakup, Jerry met a woman named Jessica Sklar-Nederlander and fell madly in love. She was a bit older, at 27, but the controversial aspect of their relationship came from Jessica’s status: she was married. She’d actually only been married for three weeks when she met Jerry. E News reported, “Seinfeld began courting Sklar after meeting her in the gym shortly after she returned from her honeymoon. Nederlander was reportedly stunned by his wife’s betrayal and swiftly filed for divorce.” It was an inappropriate way to begin a relationship, but the biggest surprise of all might be that this relationship lasted.
On Seinfeld, Jerry finds any reason to break up with a woman. He has a new girlfriend in nearly every episode. But in real life, Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld have been married for 26 years and have three children together. Your mileage may vary on a relationship that starts with infidelity, but the marriage has stood the test of time. But I’ll still always remember the time that he dated a teenage girl still in high school. As horrible as the character of Jerry could be on the show, not even Larry David would attempt to write that storyline.
All episodes of Seinfeld can be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.
