Earlier this month, “iCarly” star Jennette McCurdy’s bombshell memoir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” detailed alleged abuse she experienced while working at Nickelodeon.
Now, several former child actors and Nickelodeon staffers are speaking out against Dan Schneider, creator of “Zoey 101,” “Victorious,” “iCarly” and “Drake & Josh,” who reshaped the network and kids’ television at large.
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According to a report from Insider, Schneider was known to push the boundaries of children’s TV, often “thumbing his nose” at Nickelodeon’s standards department and ramping up the series’ sexual innuendos, including scenes in which goo was squirted on young actresses’ faces. When it came to picking costumes, Schneider “signed off on all outfits” and “campaign[ed] for the skimpier options,” the report states. (McCurdy wrote in her memoir that she was pressured to wear a bikini on “iCarly.”)
Russell Hicks, Nickelodeon’s former president of content development and production, told Insider that standards and practices read all the scripts for Schneider’s shows, programming executives watched every episode, and parents and guardians were always present on set. “Every single thing that Dan ever did on any of his shows was carefully scrutinized and approved,” Hicks wrote in a statement to the outlet.
Daniella Monet, who played Trina Vega on Nickelodeon’s “Victorious,” told Insider that some of the actors’ outfits on the show were “not age appropriate,” and that she “wouldn’t even wear some of that today as an adult.”
The actor also recalled a time when she contacted Nickelodeon about a “Victorious” scene in which she ate a pickle while applying lip gloss. Monet expressed concern to the network that it was too sexual to air, but Nickelodeon aired it anyway.
Monet noted that most of “Victorious” was “very PC, funny, silly, friendly, chill,” but once in a while, there would be questionable scenes. “Do I wish certain things, like, didn’t have to be so sexualized?” she said. “Yeah. A hundred percent.”
Reps for Schneider and Nickelodeon didn’t immediately respond to Variety‘s requests for comment.
Monet also mentioned the male-dominance of Schneider’s writers’ rooms. As Insider notes, “none of Schneider’s shows credited more than two female writers in the entirety of their runs; ‘Zoey 101’ and ‘Drake & Josh’ had zero.”
Alexa Nikolas, who starred in the first two seasons of “Zoey 101,” has been outspoken about her “traumatizing” experience at the network for years. She told Insider that Schneider once screamed at her until she broke down in tears, and that he would often take photos with teenage actresses sitting on his lap.
Last week, Nikolas protested outside of Nickelodeon’s Burbank offices with her organization, Eat Predators, which aims to expose abuse in Hollywood, and most notably the music industry.
Nikolas told Variety: “It shouldn’t be a woman having to trail blaze, it should be on the industry itself. … Because a predator’s gonna come and go — there’s always going to be a predator. But if they don’t have a safe haven, then they can’t really perpetuate that abuse.”
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