Not long after Dan Schneider apologized for his role in the Nickelodeon child abuse allegations, a former child star ripped into the once-famous producer.
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As previously reported, Schneider spoke out after the ID documentary Quiet on Set aired. The four-part documentary analyzed the abuse some of the Nickelodeon child stars experienced on Schneider’s sets. This included sexual and mental abuse.
After he watched the documentary, Dan Schneider apologized. “Watching over the past two nights was very difficult,” Dan Schneider told BooG!E, who played T-Bo on iCarly. “Me facing my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret. I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology.”
Schneider also admitted the documentary made him feel awful, regretful, and sorry. “I wish I could go back,” he continued. “Especially to those earlier years of my career, and bring the growth and the experience that I have now and just do a better job and never, ever feel like it was okay to be an asshole to anyone, ever.”
However, not everyone bought the apology. Zoey101 star Alexa Nikolas shared her reaction to Schneider’s words.
“When someone doesn’t personally come to you and apologize, it’s not an apology,” she stated. “If you hear about it through other people, it’s not really an apology right? An apology is to the person that you hurt. That’s what an apology is for.”
Nikolas then stated that she would appreciate if Schneider apologized to her directly. “He’s a bully, a meanie, and impacted my life, right? … Where’s a phone call of an apology? How come you can do all of this, how can everyone do all of this but not reach out to the person that they hurt?”
The ‘Zoey101’ Star Revealed the Deep Impact of Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon
Nikolas was also one of the former child stars to participate in the documentary about Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon. She revealed how her time at the network negatively impacted her mental health as well as self-esteem.
“Towards the end of season of Zoey101, I wasn’t happy,” Nikolas further shared. “I actually could not show up to set anymore without crying. A lot of my self-worth was deeply damaged from that set experience. Me as a person was altered for life.”
Even after he publicly apologized fo his actions, Nikolas doesn’t accept the apology. “I don’t forgive Dan Schneider,” Nikolas said in her reaction video.
“Not saying I’ll never, right? But currently, right now, that made me a little more upset, just because that just wasn’t it. That wasn’t proper accountability. That was avoiding a lot of the main discussions here that were mentioned in Quiet on Set. This was him playing the sympathy card, centering himself, playing the victim.”
Nikolas also pointed out that Schneider doesn’t feel anything. “You’re like every frickin’ privileged white male I’ve honestly ever met on set. You don’t even know what accountability is. You have no idea what it is. You’re searching for it maybe, but you haven’t landed on it. That’s for sure.”