‘REPROCESSING’

Ariana Grande Breaks Silence on ‘Devastating’ Nickelodeon Allegations

The “Victorious” and “Sam & Cat” alum also addressed those viral, sexually suggestive clips from her time at the kids TV network.

Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images

By Helen Holmes & Madeline RothJun 12, 2024

Three months after the explosive ID docuseries Quiet on Set exposed the once toxic environment at Nickelodeon, Ariana Grande has admitted she’s “reprocessing” her time at the kids TV network.

Grande addressed “the survivors who’ve come forward,” in a new interview on Penn Badgley’s podcast, Podcrushed. “There’s not a word for how devastating that is to hear about. I think the environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around,” she said in the episode, released Wednesday.

Grande began her TV career starring as Cat Valentine on Nickelodeon’s Victorious and its spinoff, Sam & Cat. Both shows were helmed by creator Dan Schneider, whose allegedly abusive and inappropriate behavior was a main focal point of Quiet on Set.

ariana speaks on her experience as a child actor on nickelodeon and the survivors that recently came forward, via @podcrushed: “there’s not a word for how devastating that is to hear about. i just think the environment needs to be made a lot safer” pic.twitter.com/C9SDdWrnZZ
— Ariana Grande Today ☀️ (@ArianaToday) June 12, 2024

Grande said her relationship to her time at Nickelodeon “is currently and has been changing, and I’m reprocessing a lot of what the experience was like.”

In March, after the release of Quiet on Set, certain bizarre and sexually suggestive clips of Grande as her character Cat resurfaced and went viral. In one scene, she attempts to squeeze juice out of a potato, groaning, “Come on, give up the juice.” In another, she puts her big toe in her mouth.

Grande said on Podcrushed that in the past, she found the “innuendos” in some of her scenes “cool,” but that “now looking back on some of the clips, I’m like, ‘Damn, really?’” She added that she was surprised “so many adults” approved those scenes.

“I think that the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting,” the Wicked star added. “I think there should be therapists, I think there should be parents allowed to be wherever they want to be.”