Ariana Grande is reflecting on her time as a Nickelodeon star.
The actress, who starred as Cat Valentine on Victorious and Sam & Cat during the 2010s, opened up about child stardom while guesting on her “the boy is mine” co-star Penn Badgley‘s podcast, Podcrushed.
“We were young performers who just wanted to do this with our lives more than anything, and we got to and that was so beautiful. I think we had some very special memories, and we feel so privileged to have been able to create those roles and be a part of something that was so special for a lot of young kids.”
With that being said, Grande reveals she is “reprocessing [my] relationship to it a little bit now, if that makes sense.”
While neither Grande nor Badgley mention Dan Schneider by name — or the documentary Quiet on Set, which brought to light many allegations of misconduct during his tenure at Nickelodeon — Grande did say it has been “devastating” to hear stories from former child actors who have come forward, referring to them as survivors.
“I think the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting, and I think there should be therapists,” Grande said.
She also mentioned feeling uncomfortable revisiting certain plot lines from Victorious.
“We were convinced [that] was the cool thing about us — is that we pushed the envelope with our humor,” Grande said. “And the innuendos were … it was, like, the cool differentiation. And I don’t know, I think it just all happened so quickly and now looking back on some of the clips I’m like, ‘D***, really? Oh s***.’ … And the things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto like our website or whatever.”
“I guess I’m upset, yeah,” Grande continued.
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