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Former Disney Channel star Jake Short is further clarifying his controversial comments about now-ex Mika Abdalla.
“I made a disrespectful, juvenile joke in a clip that recirculated this week,” Short, 29, wrote in a statement shared via his Instagram Stories on early Saturday, June 6, “It’s imperative to me that I take accountability as I am aware that it was inappropriate.”
Shortly after Us Weekly broke the news earlier this month that Short and the Off Campus star, 26, ended their engagement, a 2024 clip of the then-pair on Short’s “The Sit and Chat” podcast resurfaced online. Fans thought Short appeared to disparage Abdalla in the footage.
“It’s not representative of who I am or who I was in my relationship,” Short stressed on Saturday of the now-viral remarks. “I continue to learn from this situation and work to show people the respect they deserve.”
Hours earlier, Abdalla and Short issued an exclusive statement to Us regarding the podcast comments in question.
“We’ve seen a conversation around clips of us together when we were in a relationship, and people making harmful and inaccurate assumptions about our dynamic,” the exes told Us. “We were in a loving, respectful relationship for five years [and] it’s hurtful to see playful moments dissected in a way that does not reflect the respect and love we had and still have for each other.”
Us confirmed on Monday, June 1, that Abdalla and Short split after five years together.
“Due to recent interest in Mika’s personal life, it would feel remiss to not address that her and Jake are no longer together,” a rep for Abdalla said at the time. “They continue to support each other and remain on friendly terms, and kindly ask for privacy and respect.”
Abdalla, who met Short on the set of 2021’s Sex Appeal, recently starred as Allie Hayes in Prime Video’s Off Campus. She is set to co-lead the upcoming season 2, which is currently in production, opposite Stephen Kalyn’s Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis.
“I’m just really looking forward to digging deeper into who Allie and Dean are,” Abdalla told Us last month. “They both, kind of, have these fronts, these personas that are hard to kind of crack through. They are kind of stereotypes of themselves. But in the books, as we know, there’s so much beneath the surface of Dean, and there’s so much beneath the surface of Allie.”
She continued, “When it is time for our season, I’m excited to dig emotionally into that a little bit more, because, you know, we see Allie and Dean as their exteriors a lot in season 1. While that is fun, and they are super fun characters to play, I think as actors, selfishly, both of us are really excited to, kind of, like, get psychological.”
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