March 26, 2018: Nickelodeon severs ties with Dan Schneider

“Following many conversations together about next directions and future opportunities, Nickelodeon and our long-time creative partner Dan Schneider/Schneider’s Bakery have agreed to not extend the current deal,” Nickelodeon and Schneider said in a joint statement to Deadline.

It was a “natural time” to part ways since Schneider’s production company was wrapping up projects, the statement added.

However, Deadline reported that there was more to the story behind Schneider’s departure.

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Nickelodeon launched two internal investigations due to concerns about Schneider’s behaviour. After a 2013 investigation, Schneider started giving notes to actors on Sam & Cat from his office instead of directly interacting with them.

As detailed by The New York Times in 2021, former colleagues called Schneider temperamental and difficult to work with. Others raised concerns about Schneider asking for massages and messaging the young actors off-set.

According to US media, Schneider received a US$7 million payout when he left Nickelodeon. The Times later reported that the aforementioned money was “still owed in his contract”.

June 30, 2021: Schneider re-emerges after a three-year hiatus

Schneider told The New York Times in an interview that he “took a break” after parting with Nickelodeon to focus on back burner things – like losing more than 45kg (100 pounds).

In response to accusations that his shows like iCarly and Victorious contained scenes with sexual innuendo and that he sexualised the young stars, Schneider claimed that “the comedy was totally innocent”.

He denied mistreating the actors and defended his management style, saying that he has “high standards”.

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As for his relationships with the actors, Schneider said, “I never interacted with actors in any way, texting or otherwise, that should make anyone uncomfortable.”

The producer added that he had become “more gentle at communicating” and teased multiple projects in development, including an “ambitious and very different” TV show pilot geared toward an adult audience.

But nothing actually materialised and Schneider mostly remained out of the spotlight.

August 9, 2022: Former actor Jennette McCurdy releases her memoir

She wrote candidly about her experience starring on Schneider’s iCarly and Sam & Cat.

McCurdy, who portrayed Sam Puckett on iCarly and the spin-off series Sam & Cat, wrote about a powerful, controlling, and demanding person whom she referred to only as “The Creator”.

McCurdy said that this unnamed figure pressured her into drinking alcohol while underage, yelled at her while she was filming a kissing scene with her iCarly co-star Nathan Kress, and “explicitly” asked that bikinis be included in a wardrobe fitting.

August 30, 2022: Business Insider’s investigation with new allegations

Multiple writers, actors and crew members who worked with Schneider spoke to Business Insider’s Kate Taylor as part of the publication’s investigation. Some former child actors shared positive comments about working with the producer, but one long-time writer described the environment fostered by Schneider as a “maddening, disgusting, controlling little bubble”.

Alexa Nikolas, who starred as Nicole Bristow on Zoey 101, said that Schneider’s set was “traumatising” and alleged that the show creator yelled at her in a conference room with Nickelodeon executives when she was 13. Daniella Monet, who played Trina Vega on Victorious, said that the sitcom was typically “very PC, funny, silly, friendly, chill”, but there were moments that were sexualised.

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“Everything that happened on the shows Dan ran was carefully scrutinised by dozens of involved adults, and approved by the network,” a representative for Schneider said in a statement. “If there was an actual problem with the scenes that some people, now years later are ‘sexualising’, they would be taken down, but they are not, they are aired constantly all over the world today still, enjoyed by both kids and parents.”

Writers said that they were subjected to gruelling, long work days. Female staff writers, who were sparse on Schneider’s productions, accused him of being sexist. BI’s investigation also brought to light a gender discrimination and hostile workplace claim filed by The Amanda Show staff writer Jenny Kilgen in 2000.

Other employees accused Schneider of asking for massages from adult female colleagues. A person close to Schneider said that the producer “regrets ever asking anyone and agrees it was not appropriate, even though it only happened in public settings”.

March 17 and 18, 2024: ID releases the four-part docuseries Quiet on Set

The series aired over two nights and detailed the dark side of Nickelodeon.

Quiet on Set was directed by Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz and produced by Maxine Productions, a part of Sony Pictures Television Nonfiction, in association with Business Insider. BI’s Taylor served as an executive producer.

The docuseries included interviews with multiple crew members and former Nickelodeon stars, including Nikolas, Double Dare host Marc Summers, and All That cast members Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne.

The Amanda Show writers Kilgen and Christy Stratton also took part in the docuseries. Aside from issues over pay, the two female writers alleged that Schneider showed the staff pornography on his computer and played degrading pranks on employees.

The docuseries also detailed two predatory males who were employed at Nickelodeon and contributed to an unsafe environment for child actors: production assistant Jason Handy and dialogue and acting coach Brian Peck.

Handy, who described himself as a paedophile in his journal, was sentenced to six years in prison on two felony accounts and one misdemeanour involving two girls.

Peck was arrested in August 2003 on 11 charges of child sexual abuse related to an unnamed actor. In October 2004, Peck was sentenced to 16 months in jail and ordered to register as a sex offender. Quiet on Set revealed that Drake Bell was the actor who was sexually abused by Peck when he was 15 years old.

In Quiet on Set and in an interview with BI, Bell said that he struggled with processing his experience after Peck’s arrest, but Schneider checked in on him and offered support at the time and in the years that followed.

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Bell, who began acting when he was five years old, described Nickelodeon as “a factory” that treated child actors as “expendable”.

March 19, 2024: Schneider releases a nearly 20-minute video

In the video, Schneider addresses allegations in the docuseries and apologises for past behaviour.

After the docuseries was released in its entirety, Schneider sat down for an interview with BooG!e, aka Bobby Bowman, who played Groovy Smoothie manager T-Bo on iCarly.

Schneider said that the behaviour that he exhibited back then wouldn’t happen now. He admitted that the on-set massages were “wrong” and that he’d “never do it today”.

Regarding allegations about Schneider’s writers room, the producer said, “No writer should ever feel uncomfortable in any writers’ room, ever.” He said that it’s normal for inappropriate jokes or topics to come up in those settings, but he’s embarrassed that he took part in it and made “practical jokes that went too far”.

When asked about jokes on his shows that are viewed as inappropriate, Schneider insisted that they were written for a kid audience.

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Schneider acknowledged that there are people who didn’t have a positive experience working with him. He chalked up his attitude to the pressure of doing 40 or more episodes per year.

He said that watching Quiet on Set made him want to call some of the people who spoke out and apologise for the part he played in their negative experiences. He also said that there are plenty of things he’d do differently.

“I wish I could go back to the earlier years of my career and bring the growth and experience that I have now, and just do a better job,” he added.

Nikolas slammed Schneider’s apology in a reaction video uploaded on YouTube last Tuesday.

“I would’ve appreciated if Dan apologised directly to me,” she said. “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?”