Ariana Grande is "reprocessing" her time working on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious following the release of Quiet on Set, a documentary surrounding allegations of abusive sets led by TV producer Dan Schneider.
In a recent appearance on Penn Badgley's Podcrushed podcast, Grande was asked about starting her career in the Schneider-created sitcom Victorious, which later led to the spin-off Sam & Cat. "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 shared at the 56-minute point of the episode, seen above. "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. I think we had some very special memories, and we feel so privileged to have been able to create those roles and be a part of something that was so special for a lot of young kids."
Grande said that despite the experience, she and her co-stars are "processing" their relationship "a little bit," referring to Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV and the allegations against Nickelodeon during Schneider's years as a showrunner on countless hit sitcoms.
"I think the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting, and I think there should be therapists," she continued when asked about child acting. "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 the level of exposure it means to be on TV or to do music... There should be in the contract something about therapy is mandatory twice a week or thrice a week, or something like that."
She said that she was talking to producer Max Martin, with whom she has worked with extensively on several studio albums, because he's always been "an amazing person to talk to about the stressful parts of what I was experiencing." She said that not everyone has support from someone like him at a young age, though. "The environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around and like I said I’m still in real time reprocessing my relationship to it," she said.
Grande added that she and her Victorious co-star Elizabeth Gillies were able to "fall in love with these characters" during their time on the show, but "the rest of it is still being worked on." Grande, who didn't appear in Quiet on Set, did not name the documentary or Schneider but said it was "devastating" to hear former child actors speak about their experiences. She also said that she's reevaluated some of the more uncomfortable content in Victorious recently.
"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,” Grande said. “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 shit’… And the things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck on to like our website or whatever. ... I guess I'm upset."
The Investigation Discovery docuseries came with some bombshell allegations against the sets at Nickelodeon run by Schneider. Drake Bell, star of Drake & Josh, said he was sexually abused by dialogue coach Brian Peck, who worked on All That and The Amanda Show. Peck, no relation to Drake & Josh star Josh Peck, spent 16 months in prison after he was charged with lewd acts with a minor and oral copulation of a person under 16 in 2003.
Since the premiere of Quiet on Set, further former child actors have come forward with their experiences, including Zoey 101 star Matthew Underwood. Schneider has since filed a defamation lawsuit against the creators of Quiet on Set.
