Ariana Grande reflects on her child stardom and experiences on Nickelodeon’s “Victorious” in the latest “Podcrushed” podcast episode, discussing the need for safer environments and better support for young performers.
Ariana Grande recently appeared on the “Podcrushed” podcast, co-hosted by Penn Badgley, her co-star from “The Boy Is Mine” music video. During the episode, Grande discussed her early fame as a teenager, which began with her role as Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon show “Victorious.” The show aired for four seasons from 2010 to 2013, and she later reprised her role in the spinoff “Sam & Cat,” which ran for 35 episodes.
“I was 14 and I flew out to audition with Liz Gillies for ‘Victorious,’ and we were all very excited and we got cast and it was the best news we could hear,” Grande shared on “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.” While she appreciates her time on the show, Grande mentioned that she is “reprocessing [my] relationship to it a little bit now, if that makes sense.”
During the podcast, neither Grande nor the hosts — Badgley, Nava Kavelin, and Sophie Ansari — mentioned “Victorious” creator Dan Schneider or the recent documentary “Quiet on Set,” which highlights misconduct allegations against Schneider. However, Grande acknowledged the troubling experiences of former child actors, referring to them as “survivors.” She described it as “devastating” to hear these stories. (Schneider is currently suing ID for defamation.)
“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. “I think parents should be allowed to be wherever they want to be, and I think not only on kids’ sets. If anyone wants to do this, or music, or anything at this level of exposure, there should be in the contract something about therapy being mandatory twice a week or thrice a week, or something like that.”
Grande shared that she recently discussed these issues with Max Martin, a renowned music producer, who provided support during her stressful moments. She emphasized the need for better support systems for young performers. “A lot of people don’t have the support that they need to get through being a performer at that level at such a young age…the environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around and like I said I’m still in real time reprocessing my relationship to it.”
Despite the challenges, Grande highlighted the positive aspects of her “Victorious” experience, noting, “One of the beautiful things to come from my time on ‘Victorious’ was that Liz and I got to fall in love with these characters that we created, and learn what it feels like to be so in a character that you can’t separate yourself from it. But yeah, the rest of it is still being worked on.”
While Grande and her “Victorious” co-stars did not participate in the “Quiet on Set” documentary, clips from the show were used to illustrate some of the inappropriate content on Nickelodeon at the time. Grande expressed discomfort when revisiting certain scenes from “Victorious.”
“Specifically about our show, I think that was something that we were convinced 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, ‘Damn, really? Oh shit’…and the things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto like our website or whatever.”
Grande concluded by expressing her upset over these reflections and advocating for more parental supervision on sets with teen and child actors. Listen to her full episode of the “Podcrushed” podcast here.
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