Former Child Actress Tears Up During CNN Interview About Viral Documentary Exposing Nickelodeon Sex Abuse, Bullying
Former child actress Alexa Nikolas teared up during a CNN interview on the new documentary about sexual abuse at Nickelodeon.
After playing several clips from Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which detailed the child sexual abuse, inappropriate conduct, misogyny, and bullying that took place inside popular children’s television network Nickelodeon in the late 90s and early 2000s, CNN’s Sara Sidner asked Nikolas about her own experience as a child star on Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101.
“I experienced a lot of bullying, a lot of emotional, verbal abuse,” Nikolas told Sidner in the interview that aired Thursday. “I essentially experienced a toxic work environment, but when you think of toxic work environments, you usually think it’s adults that are having to be in them. You don’t really think about children having to experience that.”
Asked about Nickelodeon showrunner Dan Schneider’s recent apology for his alleged bullying and misconduct on set, Nikolas said, “I feel like an apology is to the person that you have harmed. You know, when you hear an apology through other people, I don’t really feel like that is a genuine apology, and so it’s very hard for me to believe him, let alone forgive him.”
After Sidner asked Nikolas what it was like to watch the documentary and to see what other child stars at the time had also experienced, Nikolas teared up and said, “As a survivor, I feel like you always think you’re the only one and because of that, you end up holding a lot of what happened to you in.”
She concluded, “And so to experience and witness so many others have their own similar experiences was not only horrible to watch and sad, but it was so extremely validating to know that I was not the only one.”
In the viral documentary, Drake and Josh star Drake Bell spoke publicly for the first time about the sexual abuse he suffered from dialogue coach Brian Peck, who was convicted in 2004. The documentary also detailed the child sex crimes committed by two other adults at Nickelodeon, including assistant Jason Handy.
On Tuesday, Nikolas led a protest outside Nickelodeon’s studio in Burbank, California, where she held a sign which read, “Nickelodeon didn’t protect us.”
Watch above via CNN.
