Ariana Grande says Child Actors Should have Mandatory Therapy

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Ariana Grande "Upset" over "Quiet on Set" Scandal, Says Child Stars Should have Mandatory Therapy
by Shania Russell
June 12, 2024


Ariana Grande, who first emerged as a young actress on Nickelodeon’s "Victorious", is reflecting on her experience as a child star.

During a visit to Penn Badgley’s 'Podcrushed' podcast, the Grammy-winner reflected on her time at the network, in the wake of revelations explored in the Investigation Discovery docuseries "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV".

While neither Grande nor her "Victorious" costars appeared in the series, footage from the show often played as examples of Nickelodeon’s content being inappropriate for children. Grande admitted to noticing this herself, while revisiting the series.




"I think that’s something that we were convinced was the cool thing about us,” she said. “That we pushed the envelope with our humor and innuendos. We were told — and convinced as well — that it was the cool differentiation. It all just happened so quickly and now looking back on some of the clips I’m like, ‘Thats… Damn, really?’”

She added, “And then the things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto like our website. And that is another discovery. But I’m going into it… I guess I’m upset.”




On the subject of child-acting in general, she continued, "My relationship to it has — and is currently — changing. I’m reprocessing a lot of what the experience was like. I think that the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting, and I think there should be therapists. I think there should be parents allowed to be wherever they want to be.”

She added, "Not only on kids sets — if anyone wants to do this or music or anything, at the level of exposure that it means to be on TV or to do music with a major label or whatever, there should be in the contract something about, ‘Therapy is mandatory twice a week.’ Or thrice a week. Or something like that.”




Grande also said, "A lot of people don’t have the support that they need to get through performing at that level at such a young age. But also, dealing with some of the things that the survivors who have come forward [have]... There’s not a word for how devastating that is to hear about. So, I think the environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around.”

She also pointed out that young performers are vulnerable to reactions from adults on set, which create “a strange pattern that occurs where it’s really taking advantage of how much it means to the young performer to get a laugh from Video Village.”

Grande went on to say she is happy with the ongoing conversation surrounding children in Hollywood, as it signals a "cultural shift." She further pointed out that it’s "not just actors and singers” experiencing sexual assault and abusive behavior in the workplace.

https://ew.com/ariana-grande-says-ch...herapy-8662231

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Elizbeth Gillies says she watched Quiet on Set on FaceTime with Victorious co-star Ariana Grande, and they "reprocessed everything together"

"I certainly reevaluated my experience with Ariana over FaceTime," Gillies tells Variety. "We watched it together, and then we got together later that week or the next week, and we sort of broke the whole thing down and talked about it, and reprocessed everything together. There was a lot to go through. It’s tricky when you look back on something incredibly positively, and then you learn a lot of information and also revisit things as an adult through a new lens that reframe the memories in your mind a little bit, or cloud them, or taint them — maybe rightfully so. So, taking that time to thoughtfully look back, reassess and reevaluate was an important thing to do, and that’s something we did. I’m very lucky I have such a close relationship with my cast — and with Ari — and that we were all able to do that together, because we definitely leaned on each other, talked amongst each other and checked in with each other."