Every Actor Who Has Spoken Out Following ‘Quiet on Set’ Revelations

Drake Bell, Josh Peck, Kenan Thompson and Victoria Justice are among numerous former Nickelodeon stars who have spoken out following the harrowing allegations revealed in Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

Investigation Discovery’s five-part docuseries outlines allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crewmembers on Nickelodeon TV show sets run by Dan Schneider. Some of the programs mentioned included The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, Victorious and Sam & Cat.

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In the series, former creatives and crewmembers detailed their experiences behind the camera, claiming they endured toxic workplaces. Amanda Bynes, who was a prominent young figure on Nickelodeon in the 1990s and early 2000s, starring in The Amanda Show and All That, was also frequently mentioned throughout, although she did not participate in the docuseries.

Below, The Hollywood Reporter has compiled comments made by former Nickelodeon actors following the release of Quiet on Set.

Drake Bell

In the third episode of the docuseries, Drake & Josh star Drake Bell for the first time publicly shared his story of alleged abuse he experienced at the hands of his former dialogue coach, Brian Peck, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a Nickelodeon child actor in 2004. At the time, the minor was referred to as John Doe in court documents.

He graphically recounted the abuse in the doc, saying, “It just got worse and worse and worse and … worse, and I was just trapped and I had no way out.” Days later, in his first interview after the ID project aired, Bell also opened up about his hesitations before doing Quiet on Set as well as Nickelodeon’s “empty” response, adding that it “was a very well-tailored response saying, ‘Learning about his trauma,’ because they couldn’t say that they didn’t know about this or what had happened, or anything.”

Following the docuseries’ release, Bell shared that his Drake & Josh co-star Josh Peck (who’s not related to Brian Peck) “reached out to talk with me and help me work through this and has been really, really great.”

Bell spoke out on podcast Not Skinny But Not Fat about how much Josh reaching out privately meant to him.

“Josh worked on The Amanda Show, so he saw and knew what was going on,” said Bell on the April 2 episode. “I appreciate that he reached out to me privately and he didn’t go straight to the media, because he was there with me and saw what I was going through.”

Josh Peck

On March 22, Josh Peck broke his silence about Quiet on Set, noting that it “took a few days to process it.” He added in an 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. 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.”

Victoria Justice

Justice starred in Zoey 101 and Victorious from 2005 to 2013, both of which were produced by Schneider. In a recent interview with Marie Claire, the actress and singer shared her experience with Nickelodeon, saying that it was mostly positive, but that the docuseries did accurately portray Schneider’s “very large ego,” which sometimes “clouded his better judgment and affected the way he treated people.”

“There were times I felt like I was being treated unfairly,” Justice added, noting Schneider’s behavior around her was never sexually inappropriate, as others have alleged.

“At the end of the day, my relationship with Dan is a very complex one: I met him when I was 12 years old, and he’s the person that gave me this big break,” she continued. “He completely changed my life. Most likely, I wouldn’t be here where I am today if it weren’t for him and for him seeing something in me. For that, I will always be grateful. After watching his apology, I think he recognizes that he did a lot of things wrong, and I think if he could step back into a time machine, he would do a lot of things differently.”

Nancy Sullivan

Nancy Sullivan, the actress who played Drake’s mother Audrey on Drake & Josh, has also shared her support for Bell. “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 part on social media. “I was both devastated and proud seeing the man he’s grown into sit down on camera and bravely tell his truth.”

Devon Werkheiser, Lindsey Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee

After receiving backlash for a joke they seemingly made about Bell, Ned’s Declassified School Survivor’s Guide stars Devon Werkheiser, Lindsey Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee took to their podcast to express their regrets over the joke, as well as to address the docuseries as a whole.

Werkheiser, who previously apologized to Bell on X (formerly Twitter), admitted that the trio hadn’t yet seen Quiet on Set when they made the “super shit” joke, adding, “Everyone was asking us for our opinions on it, and I get it. Now, having seen the documentary, it’s so disturbing. Now, we’ve watched it, and I get it. 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?’”

Shaw also noted that they shouldn’t have joked about the docuseries in any capacity and been insensitive to what other people have struggled with. “I hate that this happened,” she said. “I hate that we compounded any trauma around this situation that means so much to each of us. I am sorry.”

Steve Burns

Former Blue’s Clues host Steve Burns also shared a few words on the matter, making space for his (now grown-up) fans to share how they were feeling.

“Hey, I’m checking in,” he said in a TikTok. “Tell me what’s going on.” Burns then waited for a response, staring into the camera for a minute before finishing with, “OK. All right, well, it’s good to hear from you. You look great, by the way.”

He shared more thoughts when speaking to Today: “Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon (programming) were so different. We’re in New York, they’re in LA. There’s no overlap whatsoever between any of those shows and what we were doing.”

“I don’t have have any particular insight into any of that,” Burns said of the allegations. “I’m coming to it much the same as anyone else, with horror and heartbreak. It’s just terrible to watch it unfold. I don’t know what else to say, other than that it’s heartbreaking. It’s got to be so unfathomably painful. The fact that this is now what everyone’s talking about at the watercooler, it just breaks my heart.”

Alexa Nikolas

Zoey 101 alum Alexa Nikolas, who was among the Nickelodeon stars to appear in Quiet on Set, has remained vocal following the docuseries’ release. She released a YouTube video reacting to Schneider’s response to the series, noting that she didn’t think he was fully taking responsibility for his harmful actions. “I’m going to cut to the chase here: You don’t feel anything, Dan. 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,” she said.

Speaking with THR, Nikolas expanded on her own alleged experiences with Schneider on the set of Zoey 101, including a situation that led to her deciding to leave the show for its third season.

Matthew Underwood

Matthew Underwood, who played Logan in Zoey 101, released a statement on Instagram sharing the traumatic experiences that made him quit acting. “I know many folks want me to respond to the Quiet on Set documentary. I’m going to share something with you that I never thought I’d have to talk about publicly, as it’s honestly none of your business anyway,” he wrote.

The actor revealed he was groomed and molested at 12 by his best friends’ stepfather, losing his best friends because he “couldn’t spend any time with them without feeling the personal disgust and betrayal brought on by a man I trusted as a father to me.”

He also shared that at 19, he was “sexually harassed and then assaulted” by his agent at the time, “who had spent a decent amount of time building trust” with Underwood as a “friend and mentor.” The actor said he reported his former agent to the agency and the man was fired, but he remains “active in the industry.” This caused Underwood to abandon his acting career and move out of Los Angeles.

Underwood then noted that the reason he’s coming forward with his own story is because he’s received hate mail for not speaking out after the release of the docuseries. “Many people have been blowing up my email telling me they hope me and my mom die and that we burn in hell, I’m being called a pedophile defender and all that jazz,” he wrote.

He urged fans to be considerate of others who haven’t spoken up, as he imagines his friends in the industry “are being equally harassed if they aren’t joining the chorus” and likely have good, personal reasons why they haven’t discussed what transpired at Nickelodeon.

Underwood additionally clarified that while he “never had a bad experience working on set of a Nickelodeon show” and never personally had a bad experience with Dan Schneider, he has chosen to “believe people have the capacity to be better humans and Dan appears to recognize that he has been an asshole in his past.”

Allie DiMeco

Allie DiMeco, the actress who starred in The Naked Brothers Band as Rosalina, has spoken up about her own experiences since the release of the docuseries. She made a TikTok saying she was “stressed” while watching Quiet on Set, as she also went through her own trauma on the Nickelodeon series.

“There was an episode where Rosalina ‘cheated’ on Nat and kind of kissed a French guy,” she explained, adding that she did not want to kiss him. “He’s a 30-year-old man. I’m sorry, I couldn’t even watch it. It gives me fucking the ick, and it honestly gives me PTSD,” DiMeco said while playing an edited version of the show’s clip in question.

She added that she told the Naked Brothers Band crew “many times that I didn’t want to do it. My mom was very against it and they pretty much made me feel like I was going to lose my job, that I might be fired if I didn’t do it.”

Matt Bennett

Matt Bennett, an actor and DJ who starred in Victorious as Robbie Shapiro, shared a statement on his Instagram Story, speaking out in support of the fellow Nickelodeon stars. He mentioned that, like many of the network’s fans, he had watched Quiet on Set. As someone who was part of a hit series on the network, he said he spent his time watching the docuseries “trying to remove myself from the situation, asking, ‘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, I wouldn’t be ok with it and I’m not OK with it.” Bennett then noted that processing what occurred to the fellow Nickelodeon child stars is “a little too real for me right now and there are some mental pretzels” he has to work on undoing. He additionally shared that he’s dedicated to “help in any way I can to put more safeguards in place to protect young actors.”

Kenan Thompson

While appearing on The Tamron Hall Show on March 27, Kenan Thompson, who started his career on All That and then starred in his own show Kenan & Kel, also voiced his support. He said that though he did not share the same experiences as other Nickelodeon stars, he stands by their decision to speak out.

“Because all these things happened after I left, basically, and Dan [Schneider] wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that. 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. And then all that negativity kind of started happening outside of our tenure there,” Thompson explained.

He added, “I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out, and it’s putting things on display that need to be, you know, stories that need to be told for this, accountability sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place, and I have fond memories of my co-stars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that, it’s just, it’s really tough.​​”

Chris Massey

Meanwhile, after Zoey 101 star Chris Massey’s mother took to Instagram to defend Dan Schneider, calling him a “genius” and asking for the blame to be placed on the parents instead of the showrunner, Massey released his own statement on the social media platform. He wrote, “My story will be told from me…. not from a parent, a friend, a co-worker… ME!!! and only ME… so please stop messaging me about what my mom said… respectfully.”

Massey later appeared on the Tea Time w/ Raven-Symoné & Miranda podcast. He shared that he hadn’t seen the docuseries yet but addressed Bell coming forward with his story. Massey said he knew Bell personally and they have teamed on humanitarian work together. “We’ve done a lot of things so even for me to to hear that was shocking,” he said. “They’ll blame people or try to victimize people for coming out late but a lot of times you don’t know what those people are dealing with or how it weighs on them.”

When asked by Symoné whether Massey felt like Schneider was dismissive of the Black male stars of the shows, Massey said he did not experience that. “I thoroughly enjoyed being on set. I never felt excluded. He did a really good job of making it like Friends for for teenagers,” he said. “I witnessed him [Schneider] being upset when things were going wrong but so does every boss, so does every manager.” He also noted that yelling or criticism didn’t always equate to a “toxic environment” especially when the young castmembers could at times “lose track that this is work.”

Jennie Garth

When asked about her working relationship with Schneider at a recent event, What I Like About You star Jennie Garth bluntly stated to THR, “I don’t want to talk about Dan Schneider ever again in my life.” Garth noted she has not heard from her co-star Amanda Bynes since the airing of the documentary, but did say, “I just love her and I would love to see her at any point.”

Garth and Bynes starred as sisters on the WB series, which was co-created by Schneider and aired from 2022-06. — Ryan Fish

Lori Beth Denberg

Former All That star Lori Beth Denberg accused Schneider of playing pornography for her, lashing out at her on set and once initiating phone sex. Denberg, who was 19 at the time, told Business Insider, in an interview conducted by Quiet on Set executive producer Kate Taylor, that when he first showed her pornography clips on his computer, she felt “like that is the first time he preyed on me.”

She added that while she didn’t initially think his behavior was inappropriate, given that she was not a minor at the time of their dynamic becoming sexual, she has since realized the power dynamic he took advantage of. Denberg told the publication that the reason why she felt she couldn’t turn down Schneider was because her job was on the line.

Schneider denied Denberg’s allegations, writing in part, “Lori Beth’s accusations of me are wildly exaggerated and, in most cases, false.”

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The first four episodes of Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV are currently streaming on Max, as well as the fifth episode, Breaking the Silence.

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