Ariana Grande Speaks Out on Quiet On Set and Child Stardom in New Interview
On Penn Badgley’s podcast, Podcrushed, Ariana Grande breaks her silence on the Quiet On Set documentary and her personal experiences as a child star on Nickelodeon.
On June 12, “the boy is mine” singer joined Badgley as a guest on his podcast. On the podcast, the You actor brings guests in to share personal memories from their childhood and teenage years. In the first part of Grande’s eye-opening interview, the pop star speaks out for the first time on the Quiet On Set allegations and her experiences on the set of the hit children’s TV series, Victorious.
Seriously, Ariana, what are you doing here?
— Podcrushed (@podcrushed) June 10, 2024
audio on all streaming platforms and video on YouTube JUNE 12, 6am EST #arianagrande #podcrushed #pennbadgley #eternalsunshine #wicked pic.twitter.com/PxaW8QWuTC
The Quiet On Set documentary features several first-hand accounts from cast and crew members of gender and racial discrimination. It also tackles sexual harassment and abuse, that took place on the sets of many beloved Nickelodeon series.
On Podcrushed, the Wicked actress speaks out in solidarity with survivors and shares how she views her own experiences. “Obviously, my relationship to [my time at Nickelodeon] has been and is currently changing, and I’ve been reprocessing a lot of what the experience was like,” Grande tells Badgley. “There’s not a word for how devastating [the allegations] [are] to hear about…Like I said, I’m still, in real time, reprocessing my relationship to it.”
finished the podcrushed episode and the last part really got me bc for all the things ariana has gone through we truly do not acknowledge her strength enough and how difficult it is to still stand so gracefully and kind despite all of it
— dinya⁷ (@sweetenersgloss) June 12, 2024
The documentary, released earlier this year on MAX, highlights disturbing videos that were released on the Victorious extension website, The Slap. These videos feature Grande and other teen actors performing suggestive, innuendo-filled challenges. One video portrayed Grande squeezing a potato to “give up the juice.”
“It’s really taken advantage of how much it means to the young performer to get a laugh from [the producers],” the singer shares on the concerning clips. “That was something we were convinced was…the cool thing about us, is that we pushed the envelope with our humor…now looking back on some of the clips, I’m like, ‘D***, really?’ …The things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto our website…I guess I’m upset.”
ariana crying at the end of the podcast broke my heart she’s been through so much. she truly is the strongest person, she’s owed one of the biggest apologies pic.twitter.com/qYNFCBZ8fZ
— alex♡ (@wtfalxxz) June 12, 2024
Reflecting on her experiences on the network, Grande calls for a safer environment for child actors. “…I think there should be therapists [on set], I think there should be parents allowed to be wherever they wanna be,” the singer states. “I think the environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around.”
Readers can stream Grande’s music on all platforms and check out part one of Ariana Grande’s Podcrushed interview below.
