‘It Just All Happened So Quickly’

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV continues to be a big talking point as it shines a light on the dangers child actors face while working on set. The primary focus was on former Nickelodeon stars, which has led to many of them speaking out about their experiences, and now, Ariana Grande has been added to the list. While she was silent when the docuseries was first released, she is now speaking out about her experiences on her Nickelodeon shows and stressing that things need to be safer for children while they’re on set.

During an appearance on the Podcrushed podcast hosted by Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin, and Sophie Ansari, Grande addressed the allegations of the Quiet on Set docuseries and her time on the hit Nickelodeon shows, Victorious and Sam & Cat. The singer and actress first stressed that help needs to be available for children in these working situations, and believes therapists should be “mandatory” on kids’ shows with parents allowed to be present more frequently.

“I think the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting, and I think there should be therapists. I think parents should allowed to be wherever they want to be, and I think not only on kids’ sets. If anyone wants to do this, or music, or anything at this level of exposure, there should be in the contract something about therapy is mandatory twice a week or thrice a week, or something like that.”

Ariana Grande Began Her Career on Nickelodeon

Before Grande became a Grammy-winning pop superstar, she was known to kids everywhere after starring in the Nickelodeon show Victorious from 2010-2013. Her character Cat Valentine was then spun off into her own series called Sam & Cat, one of the shows used in the docuseries to showcase examples of inappropriate material aimed at children and written primarily by Schneider. Several clips from the series, many of which come across as suggestive in nature, have since gone viral.

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The allegations against Dan Schneider come in the wake of the docuseries Quiet on Set alleging that he fostered a toxic work environment.

Grande admits that, at the time, nothing seemed wrong with the material because it was being presented to them as if they were pushing the envelope in terms of humor on children’s television. However, looking back on it now as an adult, she is “upset” by a lot of it and is “reprocessing” her time filming much of that as a teenager.

“Specifically about our show, I think that was something that we were convinced was the cool thing about us — is that we pushed the envelope with our humor. And the innuendos were…it was like the cool differentiation. And I don’t know, I think it just all happened so quickly and now looking back on some of the clips I’m like, ‘Damn, really? Oh sh*t’…and the things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto like our website or whatever. I guess I’m upset, yeah”

While many other Nickelodeon stars have spoken out about their experiences after the docuseries was released, including Victoria Justice, Lori Beth Denberg, Kenan Thompson, and more, Grande is the most high-profile of these stars to speak about the allegations so far.

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV looked into Schneider’s tenure as a highly successful producer and showrunner on several hit Nickelodeon series. The allegations leveled against him included fostering a very toxic work environment, misogyny against female writers on staff, and the alleged inappropriate nature of some of the material he wrote for children’s programming.

Schneider has since issued an apology on his YouTube channel for his actions. However, he is currently suing the producers behind the docuseries for making it look like he also was the subject of pedophilia, something that was another focus of the doc when discussing registered sex offender Brian Peck and production assistant Jason Michael Handy.