Ariana Grande Responds To ‘Devastating’ ‘Quiet On Set’ Nickelodeon Allegations

Everyone who watched Nickelodeon in the ’90s and 2000s has been going through it since the brutal Max documentary, Quiet on Set, aired in March. The docuseries exposes the dark underbelly of the kids network and sheds light on all the traumatic experiences child stars enduring during that time. According to the doc, women writers were mistreated, Drake Bell was sexually abused, and the successful Nickelodeon show creator and producer Dan Schneider created toxic environments on his sets. Not to mention, there were apparently lots of jokes in the kids shows that had undeniably sexual undertones.

Somehow, there’s even more to the tragic story. A fifth episode of the documentary will be available to stream on April 7. Although it’s understandably difficult for them to speak on this subject, several actors who were on these sets have addressed Quiet on Set. Here are all the former Nickelodeon stars who have spoken out about the documentary so far.

Josh Peck

After initially receiving criticism for not responding to the doc, Josh made a statement in a March 22 Instagram post. “I reached out to Drake privately, but wanted to give my support for the survivors who were brave enough to share their stories of emotional and physical abuse on Nickelodeon sets with the world,” he wrote. “Children should be protected. Reliving this publicly is incredibly difficult, but I hope it can bring healing for the victims and their families as well as necessary change to our industry.”

Nancy Sullivan

Nancy played Drake’s mother on Drake & Josh and has openly supported the actor since Quiet on Set aired. She posted a throwback photo of Drake and shared that she’ll always love him. “It broke my heart into a million pieces to hear just how much Drake was holding inside while we were working together,” she wrote in an Instagram caption. “I was both devastated and proud seeing the man he’s grown into sit down on camera and bravely tell his truth.”

Alexa Nikolas

Alexa, who starred in Zoey 101, appears in the documentary and has long been outspoken about the abuse that occurs in the entertainment industry. After Dan Schneider’s interview response to Quiet on Set, Alexa posted a YouTube reaction. She was not thrilled with what he had to say. “I’m going to cut to the chase here: You don’t feel anything, Dan,” she says in the video. “You have no idea what accountability is. You’re searching for it, maybe, but you haven’t landed on it. That’s for sure. This is not the way.”

Kenan Thompson

Before Saturday Night Live, Kenan starred in Nickelodeon’s All That and Kenan & Kel. He shared his thoughts on Quiet on Set during an appearance on The Tamron Hall Show. “All these things happened after I left, basically, and Dan wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that,” he clarified. “I mean, he got a ‘created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner. So our worlds weren’t really overlapping outside of all that, necessarily.” He noted that although it’s a “good thing that the doc is out,” it’s difficult to watch because of his own “fond memories” of Nickelodeon.

Matt Bennett

Image Credit: Getty

The now-DJ played fan favorite Robbie Shapiro on Victorious back in the day. In an Instagram Story, he revealed that he had watched the documentary. Matt explained that while watching, he tried to look at the situation objectively, asking himself: “If I hadn’t worked for Nickelodeon and didn’t know any of the people involved, would I be OK with the behavior and the treatment of others I’m seeing?” He realized that the answer was no and emphasized that he wants to “help in any way I can to put more safeguards in place to protect young actors.”

Devon Werkheiser, Lindsey Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee

Image Credit: Getty

After the former Ned’s Declassified School Survivor’s Guide made an insensitive joke seemingly about Drake, they apologized on their podcast and spoke about Quiet on Set. “Now having seen the documentary, it’s so disturbing,” Devon said. “If I had just watched especially that third episode and then watched us joking like that… I would be like, ‘Are they sociopaths? Is something wrong with them?’”

Lindsey opened up about regretting the joke and shared, “I hate that this happened. I hate that we compounded any trauma around this situation that means so much to each of us. I am sorry.”

Matthew Underwood

The Zoey 101 star responded to the documentary with a heavy Instagram statement. Matthew shared that when he was 19, his agent sexually harassed and assaulted him. “I reported him to the agency and he has since been fired — although he is still active in the industry,” he wrote. “This experience provoked my move away from LA and ending my pursuit of acting.”

He urged people to be gentle with former Nickelodeon stars who haven’t yet publicly responded to Quiet on Set. “Just because a person doesn’t shout from the rooftops that pedophiles are bad or that people can suck — that does not mean they don’t have their own reasons for staying silent, good reasons, personal reasons,” Matthew explained.

Jack Salvatore Jr.

Jack played Mark Del Figgalo on Zoey 101, and he was also a writer for Sam & Cat and Victorious. In response to Quiet on Set, he posted an Instagram video expressing his thoughts. “We could talk about the massages,” Jack says in the video. “We could talk about the fact that [Dan] would literally count his gold coin collection in front of his crew who was living paycheck to paycheck. We could talk about how sometimes he would bring out his shotgun to scare one of the writers when they were working at his house.” He emphasized, “But what I do want to talk about is never letting this stuff happen again.” Jack noted that until Dan talks to actual journalists rather than a former cast member, his apology is “not accepted.”

Allie DiMeco

The actress, who portrayed Rosalina in Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band, shared her thoughts on the documentary via TikTok. “I’m stressed,” she said. “Why? Because I’m watching the Quiet on Set documentary. I had to.” Allie added, “My mind’s been wandering to this one — multiple times, and actually multiple episodes. There was an episode where Rosalina cheated on Nat and kissed a French guy.” She included a clip of that episode, noting, “I’m 4’11, he’s a 30 year old man. I couldn’t even watch it. It gave me fucking, the ick. It honestly gives me PTSD.” At the time, Allie really didn’t want to do the kiss and repeatedly expressed that to people at the network. She felt like she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

Amber Frank

The Haunted Hathaways actress felt compelled to speak out about her own experience after watching the series. “One of the horrifying things that happened in my experience with Nickelodeon was when Nickelodeon sent computers over to production when we were starting filming the show,” she shared on TikTok. “And when they were turned on, there was child porn on them. And nobody was held accountable. There was no investigation, never even found out where it came from or who was responsible for it.” She sent her love to all the survivors.

Ariana Grande

Ariana famously played Cat on Victorious and Sam & Cat. On June 12, she appeared on Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin and Sophie Ansari’s podcast, Podcrushed, and shared her thoughts about her experience at Nickelodeon. “Obviously my relationship to it has been — and is currently — changing,” she said. “I’ve been reprocessing a lot of what the experience was like.” The singer emphasized that the environment “needs to be made safer” for kids and noted that there should be therapists and parents present.

She continued, “We were convinced [that] was the cool thing about [Victorious]: We pushed the envelope with our humor, the innuendos. It just all happened so quickly, and now looking back on some of the clips, I’m like, ‘Damn, really?’” According to the Wicked star, “The things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto our website.”

“I guess I’m upset,” Ariana said, adding, “The survivors who have come forward, there’s not a word for how devastating that is to hear about. I think the environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around. Like I said, I’m still, in real-time, reprocessing my relationship to it.”