Cody Ko is facing renewed allegations of statutory rape after YouTuber D’Angelo Wallace posted a 15-minute video about Tana Mongeau‘s claim that she had sex with Ko when he was 25 and she was 17.
Wallace’s video, called An uncomfortable conversation about Cody Ko, stems from May 30, when Mongeau was live-recording an episode of her podcast Cancelled in front of an audience. When asked a question about sexual partners, she mentioned Ko, then said, “I was literally 17.”
Later in the episode, which was released June 21, she adds, “This isn’t just some crazy tea. I hooked up with Cody Ko when I was 17 and he was 25. At 25 now […] I would never do anything like that, so I’m like, ‘What the fuck was wrong with you’?”
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Mongeau says the incident happened at Playlist Live, and that fellow YouTuber Gabbie Hanna warned Ko that Mongeau was underage. He allegedly was not deterred. Ko, who’s now 33, is half of Tiny Meat Gang, co-runs TMG Studios, and is in the midst of developing a project with Jubilee Media.
Mongeau has made these allegations publicly as far back as 2021. But while she made them again live onstage in May (and they were revisited when the episode released in June, with some creators and fans discussing them on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit) there wasn’t serious backlash against Ko until Wallace uploaded his video.
Wallace alleges that’s because Ko has been “sweeping [allegations] under the rug,” and that his friends who are fellow well-known creators aren’t calling him out.
“None of your friends, nobody on your level, nobody in the commentary niche with enough pull, is willing to admit that this situation makes you look terrible,” Wallace says. He adds, “I’m not here to accuse you of committing a crime in this video, because I can’t do that based on someone else’s allegations. Nobody can definitively take these allegations as proof. But at the same time, they should still be looked at and not be treated as an open secret.”
Wallace points out that Ko has had a sexual assault-related controversy in the past: He featured his college friend Colby Leachman in videos after Leachman was put on probation by their university for “the non-consensual videotaping of a sex act with another student.” A district judge also ruled that Leachman showed the video to other people, lied to police about it, and “behaved horribly to [the victim] and at least one other woman.” Leachman went on to be the best man at Ko’s wedding.
Wallace’s video has been viewed nearly 2.3 million times, with more than 18,000 comments discussing the allegations. Other creators are also chiming in—notably Brittany Broski, a longtime friend and collaborator of Ko, who’s facing backlash of her own because, in her statement about the situation, she said that “if” Mongeau’s claim is “proven to be true, then it’s extremely upsetting.”
Ko has yet to publicly comment on the allegations.
