Ariana Grande has broken her silence surrounding the abuse allegations at Nickelodeon stemming from the Quiet On Set documentary.
The documentary premiered in March 2024 and exposed shocking allegations from former child actors who starred on popular shows like Zoey 101, The Amanda Show and more.
Grande appeared on fellow child actor Penn Badgley‘s podcast, Podcrushed, to talk about her new music, Wicked, and their collaboration for her “The Boy Is Mine” music video.
When asked how she felt about kids in show business, she alluded to the distressing allegations.
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“Obviously, my relationship to it has and is currently and has been changing,” she said.
“I’m reprocessing a lot of what the experience was like,” she said, seemingly referring to her time at Nickelodeon as Cat Valentine on Victorious.
“I think that the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting. I think there should be therapists. I think there should be parents allowed to be wherever they wanna be,” she continued.
When discussing the “survivors” who shared their stories, Grande said, “There’s not a word for how devastating that is to hear about.”
“I’m still, in real-time, reprocessing my relationship to it,” she reiterated.
“There’s also a strange pattern that occurs where it’s really taken advantage of how much it means to the young performer to get a laugh from video village,” the “Eternal Sunshine” singer said.
“Speaking specifically about our show [Victorious], I think that was something that we were convinced was like, the cool thing about us. We pushed the envelope with our humor,” she went on.
Victorious was known for containing many innuendos and jokes that are now being criticized as fans look back on them as adults.
“Now looking back on some of the clips, I’m like, ‘That’s… Damn, like really? Oh s–t, like if my daughter…'” she said.
“And then the things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto our website,” she added, noting, “I guess I’m upset.”
She added that later on during her time on Nickelodeon her mother, Joan Grande, was allowed to be on set and that the two have been unpacking Grande’s child acting days.
Badgley noted that from his perspective as a child actor, the experience was nuanced and, “it [child acting] takes and it gives.”
He agreed that the allegations are “devastating” and added that “it doesn’t mean that it was all–– it’s just like across the board a negative experience for everybody.”
“I think that’s a very complicated and strange truth to sit with,” he said.
“It changes it,” Grande agreed. “It changes it a lot.”
