Ariana Grande Addresses Quiet on Set Allegations
Ariana Grande breaks her silence regarding the Nickelodeon allegations made in the documentary Quiet on Set. She remembered her time filming the sitcom Victorious created by Dan Schneider, who now became a controversial figure after the premiere of the docuseries.
In Grande’s recent appearance on the podcast Podcrushed, hosted by Penn Badgley, she talked about her stardom as a child. She said, “I was 14 and I flew out to audition with Liz Gillies for Victorious, and we were all very excited, and we got cast and it was the best news we could hear.”
She also added, “We were young performers who just wanted to do this with our lives more than anything, and we got to, and that was so beautiful.”
She explained that she had been thoughtful since her time on the set and that the relationship was changing, saying, “I’m reprocessing a lot of what the experience was like.”
Grande noted that the shooting environment should be safer for the child actors. She said “there should be therapists” and that parents should be allowed “wherever they want to be.” She continued that therapy should be mandatory twice or three times a week and should be added to the contract not only on the kid’s set but also in other fields, whoever wants.
Grande recalled that one of the “beautiful things” about her time on the show was that she and her co-star Gillies fell in love with their characters and continued, “Learn what it feels like to be so in a character that you can’t separate yourself from it.”
She admitted that some of the scenes she played as a child star were appropriate for the show. She didn’t note any particular scene, but she expressed that “now looking back on some of the clips” made her upset.
Grande and the podcast hosts didn’t mention in their conversation neither the ‘Quiet on Set’ documentary nor the allegations against Dan Schneider during his time at Nickelodeon. But the actress said that it was “devasting” to hear the abuse the former child artists faced.
The five-part documentary series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV premiered in March and is available to stream on Max. The series focuses on behind-the-scenes from child TV shows that broadcasted from the 1990s to the 2000s on Nickelodeon at the tenure of Schneider as a showrunner.
Several former cast members and crew members from Nickelodeon made accusations against Schneider, including sexual assault, verbal abuse, racism, and harassment. Schneider denied the allegation made about the docuseries and sued the creators of the series for defamation.