On the heels of the Weinstein scandal comes stories of Dan Schneider, a former actor and producer over at Nickelodeon.
Schneider is the man behind basically all their biggest hits over the last 20 years and responsible for launching Arianna Grande, Amanda Bynes and Victoria Justice into stardom.
But over the years a lot of fingers have been pointed at the man for his illicit behavior toward children.
As reported by Kira Davis for Red State:
Schneider has also been the subject of some very disturbing and consistent rumors for years. One need only search his name on the internet to find pretty damning rumors about him going back years. There are stories of his foot fetishes and how he acts them out on young extras alone in his office. There are stories about his relationships with his underage teenage stars and how they led to spin-off shows for the girls or blacklisting for those who didn’t participate.
Over the years many anonymous actors and users have told their stories on forums like Reddit and in chat rooms.
One of the greatest examples of an alleged child predator producer is Dan Schneider, who created and wrote Zoey 101, All That, Victorious, iCarly, The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, and What I Like About You, and is the most successful writer/tv executive in Childrens Entertainment Television for the last thirty years.
Robert Downey Jr. allegedly wrote the following statement about Dan Schneider on Crazy Days and Nights under the screen name Himmmm:
Hes a monster. The WORST predator alive. And if you wonder why nobody will confront or charge him? Hes in charge of multiple HIT SHOWS for Nick which rakes in oceans of money. Tens of millions of dollars multiplied by many years and many shows (not to mention his merchandising royalties). So Viacom-Nick warn him to cool it – then pay for his damn lawyers.
What about the parents? No tweener parent who shoved their kid into the limelight from birth is going to cross him either, and risk career suicide and loss of revenue (and residuals and future career). No matter how bad it ****s up the kids. Especially if theres MULTIPLE kid actors in the family. And the kids agents are complicit too. Just ask the Spears family. A LOT of settlements get paid out of Viacoms accounts.
There have been rumors swirling about Dan Schneider for quite some time. Rumors that he is the father Jamie Lynn Spears daughter, got Amanda Bynes pregnant and paid for her abortion, and took the virginity of countless Nickelodeon starlettes. A quick Google search will show you how many people are catching onto this guy and questioning his innocence.
Completely independent of this story, I happened to be chatting with a former child actor over a week ago. We were discussing Weinstein and she told me that in her youth she worked on one of Schneider’s shows very briefly. She told me, “My friend was molested by that man…on set. Everyone knew it. No one said a word.”
She also said that he told her she was too fat to be famous. She was 11.
If Schneider is the monster people seem to believe he is, some things do fall into place. Jamie Lynn Spears was on track to eclipse her older sister in fame when she dropped out of Hollywood in “disgrace” because of her unplanned pregnancy. To this day she has never said a word about the real father of her child (and kudos to her for bringing her baby into the world). Amanda Bynes is an extremely gifted performer but tragically lost contact with reality for a while. She went on a now infamous twitter rant blaming her parents for basically making her a prostitute. It makes a lot more sense when you put it in the context of a Dan Schneider.