Former Nickelodeon Stars Address Their Behind-the-Scenes Experience at the Network

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Former Nickelodeon Stars Address Their Behind-the-Scenes Experience at the Network

Over the years, former Nickelodeon stars have opened up about their journey as child actors at the network — and not everyone had the same experience. Jennette McCurdy shocked her fans when she revealed that she wasn't thrilled about her time on iCarly. “I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15, I was already embarrassed. My friends at 15 weren’t like, ‘Oh, cool, you’re on this Nickelodeon show.’ It was embarrassing," the actress, who played Sam Puckett, admitted during an episode of her “Empty Inside” podcast in March 2021. "I imagine there’s a very different experience to be had with acting if you’re proud of your roles.” McCurdy later elaborated on her experience during an August 2022 interview with The New York Times while promoting her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. "My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited," she said. "It still gives my nervous system a reaction to say it. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn't know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing." Scroll down for more former Nickelodeon stars' candid comments about the network:

Credit: Shutterstock (3)

Former Nickelodeon Stars Address Their Behind-the-Scenes Experience at the Network

Over the years, former Nickelodeon stars have opened up about their journey as child actors at the network — and not everyone had the same experience. Jennette McCurdy shocked her fans when she revealed that she wasn't thrilled about her time on iCarly. “I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15, I was already embarrassed. My friends at 15 weren’t like, ‘Oh, cool, you’re on this Nickelodeon show.’ It was embarrassing," the actress, who played Sam Puckett, admitted during an episode of her “Empty Inside” podcast in March 2021. "I imagine there’s a very different experience to be had with acting if you’re proud of your roles.” McCurdy later elaborated on her experience during an August 2022 interview with The New York Times while promoting her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. "My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited," she said. "It still gives my nervous system a reaction to say it. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn't know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing." Scroll down for more former Nickelodeon stars' candid comments about the network:

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Nathan Kress

The actor, who rose to stardom playing Freddie Benson on iCarly, previously opened up about the expectations that came with his role.

"Even from an early age, I felt a certain amount of responsibility. A lot of that is due to the fact that I was getting letters from people saying, ‘Hey, man, I really look up to you. I appreciate the choices that you’re making and the things that you’re doing, but also the things that you’re not doing,'" Kress told Euphoria in June 2022. "I was getting that feedback very early on from a lot of different sources and that kind of made me want to keep it going. So, I guess I slipped into dad mode sort of inherently."

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Jennette McCurdy

After playing Sam Puckett on two Nickelodeon shows, McCurdy revealed she "really resented" her life as a child actress. 

"It's a difficult thing to say because the shows that I was on were so loved by so many people and so many kids. I hear constantly that, 'You made my childhood,' and I think it's great that they had that experience but that just was not my experience," she explained on her "Empty Inside" podcast in 2021. "It just was hellish, I think, is not too intense of a word. Nobody really knew me. I was very different from the character I was playing. I'm known as a thing that I'm not."

McCurdy went into more detail about her time with the network in her 2022 memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. In the tell-all, she claimed she was once offered $300,000 in exchange for not publicly discussing her experience at Nickelodeon.  

McCurdy also seemingly mentioned iCarly creator Dan Schneider in the book under the moniker “The Creator.” She alleged that “The Creator” was hit with “accusations of his emotional abuse,” which didn’t surprise her.  

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Daniella Monet

In August 2022, the Victorious alum recalled feeling "sexualized" during her time on the show. “Do I wish certain things, like, didn’t have to be so sexualized? Yeah, 100 percent,” she told Insider, noting that her onscreen attire concerned her.

Nickelodeon’s former president Russell Hicks addressed the concerns in a statement, saying, “Every single thing that Dan ever did on any of his shows was carefully scrutinized and approved."

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Alexa Nikolas

Since her role as Nicole Bristow in Zoey 101, Nikolas has been outspoken about her "traumatizing" Nickelodeon experience.

“I did not feel protected at Nickelodeon as a child personally,” she said in an August 2022 Instagram video from a protest outside the network. “And so, I’m demanding that Nickelodeon starts protecting children and not predators.”

Elsewhere in the video, Nikolas called Schneider, who created Zoey 101, a “creator of childhood trauma” whom she “did not feel safe around” as a kid. 

“Every time he came on set, my body got extremely tense,” she said. 

Nikolas told more of her story in the 2024 docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which focused heavily on Schneider’s tenure at Nickelodeon.

“I wasn’t happy. I actually couldn’t show up to set anymore without crying,” she said. “A lot of my self-worth was deeply damaged from that set experience. Me as a person was altered for life.”

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Ariana Grande

"It was a blessing and one of my childhood dreams come true," the singer, who became a household name after playing Cat Valentine in Victorious and Sam & Cat, told People in 2014. "For a long time, I was attached to a character that was nothing like myself. It was a little frustrating."

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Jamie Lynn Spears

After bringing the lead role in Zoey 101 to life, Spears later gushed about her time at Nickelodeon. "So thankful for this show and everyone who loved and supported it," she wrote via Instagram in 2021. "I grew up on this show, so it was pretty much my childhood also. Love y'all."

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Melissa Joan Hart

In 2014, Hart reflected on the impact that her role in Clarissa Explains It All had on her life.

"Clarissa taught me a lot — if she could stand up to a bully or date the bully, break boundaries and stand up for what she believed in and be smart, sassy, and likable, then I could be those things too," the New York native told Variety in 2016. "I was feeling a lot of peer pressure and feeling like I didn’t fit in — you know, all those kid things — but working with adults I found that the adults don’t care if you wear what’s trendy, they only care if you’re nice to them and you’re fun to talk to. So I kind of developed my social skills."

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Ashley Argota

Following her time on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP, Argota moved on to Disney and never looked back. In 2014, the California native seemingly threw shade at the network when a fan asked why they didn't hear her singing voice prior to Disney.

"The other network never gave me the opportunity," Argota tweeted at the time.

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Nat Wolff

According to Wolff, playing a fictionalized version of himself on The Naked Brothers Band came with its ups and downs.

"I think as a Nickelodeon actor, I kind of got more respect as a musician," he told Vanity Fair in 2014. "The Nickelodeon show was an amazing learning place, because it was all my best friends in real life and it was a lot of improv. [The Naked Brothers Band] is actually a pretty good show."

The Paper Towns star added: "Most of the Nickelodeon shows are pretty bad, but that show is good! Cool people randomly come up to me, who I never thought would watch the show, to say that they watch it. Like Judd Apatow came up to me and told me how much he loved the show. It’s cooler than most kids’ shows."

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Devon Werkheiser

While reflecting on his leading role in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Werkheiser admitted he wasn't thrilled with how Nickelodeon marketed the show. 

"I thought they could have promoted our show more compared to the other shows that got more attention," he wrote via Reddit in 2015. "I also would have liked to have been used more by them, for the award shows and stuff like that."

Werkheiser later spoke up about not reaping the benefits of his show’s popularity.

“Picketing today at Paramount. Paramount’s parent company is Viacom, the same parent company of Nickelodeon, where for 20 years Ned’s has been sold all over the world, and I’ve never seen one residual or royalty from it due to bad deal at the time,” he said in a July 2023 TikTok video amid the SAG-AFTRA strike. 

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Kenan Thompson

"I gotta give Nickelodeon their credit because it trained me for exactly what’s happening in my life right now. I went from a sketch show to a sitcom," Thompson, who got his start on All That and Kenan & Kel, shared during an interview with Atlanta Magazine in 2021.

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Drake Bell

In Quiet on Set, the Drake & Josh star opened up for the first time about being sexually assaulted by actor and Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck (who has no relation to Bell’s former costar Josh Peck) when he was a teenager.

During the third part of the docuseries, Bell identified himself as the child who reported Brian to the authorities in the early 2000s. Brian pleaded no contest to performing a lewd act with a victim around 14 or 15 years old and to oral copulation with a child under 16 years old, which resulted in a 16-month prison sentence.

“I really don’t know how to elaborate on that on camera. … Why don’t you think of the worst stuff someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault and that will answer your question,” Bell said during the docuseries while describing the “extensive” and “brutal” abuse. “I don’t know how else to put it. It was not a one-time thing.”

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Josh Peck

Josh, who starred alongside Bell on both The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh, showed his support for Bell in March 2024 after watching Quiet on Set.

“I finished the Quiet On Set documentary and took a few days to process it,” he wrote via Instagram. “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.”

Josh continued: “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.”