Ariana Grande Says Therapists ‘Should Be Mandatory’ on Kids’ TV Show Sets: ‘I’m Upset’
Samantha Bergeson
Ariana Grande is looking back at her child star roots on Nickelodeon series “Victorious” and spinoff “Sam & Cat” amid the recent allegations captured by docuseries “Quiet on Set.”
Grande, who is leading the upcoming musical adaptation “Wicked,” said during the “Podcrushed” podcast that she believes therapists should be “mandatory” on kid show sets. Grande added that it’s been “devastating” to learn about fellow former child stars’ stories on Nickelodeon; the Grammy winner referred to those actors as “survivors.”
“I think the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting, and I think there should be therapists,” Grande said. “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 this level of exposure, there should be in the contract something about therapy is mandatory twice a week or thrice a week, or something like that.”
Grande added of her own career that she is “reprocessing [my] relationship to it a little bit now, if that makes sense.”
Grande starred in “Victorious” for four seasons from 2010 and 2013. The spinoff series “Sam & Cat” ran for 35 episodes. “Sam & Cat” was specifically revisited in pop culture after Grande’s co-star Jeannette McCurdy alleged in her memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died” that a Nickelodeon “creator” supplied children with alcohol and requested massages on set. McCurdy alleged she was offered $300,000 in “hush money” to not come forward about the abuse; she declined the payment. Schneider was fired by Nickelodeon in 2018 following an investigation that found he had verbally abused colleagues.
Clips from “Sam & Cat” went viral with a compilation of the sexualized content racking up over 11 million views. Scenes included “Cat’s Random Thoughts” that showed Grande’s character self-taping a series of mini-episodes from her bedroom. Schneider wrote and directed all eight installments. Grande, at age 16 at the time, was shown sucking on her own toe, trying to “milk” a potato, and pouring water over herself while on a bed saying, “I’m soaking wet.”
Now, Grande is admitting that she is “upset” by the content.
“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 on the podcast. “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 onto like our website or whatever.”
She added, “I guess I’m upset, yeah.”
Grande was 14 years old when she was cast in “Victorious.”
“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,” Grande said. “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. [But] a lot of people don’t have the support that they need to get through being a performer at that level at such a young age…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.”
Controversial docuseries “Quiet on Set” captured allegations against the network and showrunner Schneider, who filed a lawsuit against the ID producers.
