The 33-year-old actress — who starred in the Nickelodeon series ‘Unfabulous’ from 2004 to 2007 as a teen — shared her thoughts on the docuseries, in which former Nickelodeon stars detailed disturbing allegations of an abusive and toxic environment on set.
Emma Roberts is speaking out about the docuseries, Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.
During an appearance on Variety’s Just for Variety podcast, the 33-year-old actress shared her thoughts on Quiet on Set, in which former Nickelodeon stars detailed disturbing allegations of an abusive and toxic environment on set.
Roberts — who starred in the Nickelodeon series Unfabulous from 2004 to 2007 as a teen — said she felt “horrified and shocked” watching the docuseries, noting that it made her feel “really sad” knowing that other child stars had a completely different experience than her own.
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“I watched [it], and I was completely horrified and shocked because that was not my experience,” Roberts said. “It made me really, really, really sad that that was happening to people that I literally saw often and had no idea.”
“For me, my show, Unfabulous, the showrunner we had was this amazing woman named Sue Rose,” she continued. “And I didn’t realize at the time, but a female showrunner back then was not very common. But that was my intro into working on a TV show.”
Roberts went on to share that her mother was always on set with her.
“My mom was with me 24/7, and even I would be like, ‘You don’t have to be here all the time,’ she was like, ‘I do actually. I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re not going to a fitting by yourself when you’re 13 years old,'” she said.
She added, “It makes me really sad, and I just feel like children need to be protected on sets, as do adults, and I feel like we’re working towards a better work environment in that sense”
“But yeah, that documentary really kept me up at night,” Roberts concluded.
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A handful of Nickelodeon alums spoke out in Quiet on Set, which dropped in March, alleging a toxic work environment fostered by executives, including Dan Schneider, racism, and sexism as well as inappropriate conduct at the hands of adults on set.
He denied the bulk of those claims, but did apologize for his behavior in a video uploaded to YouTube after the docuseries aired.
“Watching over the past two nights was very difficult, me facing my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret, and I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology,” he said at the time.
Although much of the bombshell docuseries focused on Schneider’s allegedly abusive behavior, the biggest headlines came from Drake Bell’s shocking reveal that he was the child star who came forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck.
In the wake of the 2003 sexual abuse case against him, Peck pleaded no contest to two charges of child sexual abuse and was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender.
