by Kira Davis
RedState
The Harvey Weinstein scandal may have opened up a whole can of worms for Hollywood, but (to employ another metaphor) that is just the tip of the iceberg. The scandal is due to crack wide open any day now, and it’s not another Weinstein tale.
It’s worse.
By now we’ve all been reminded of actor Corey Feldman’s accusations years ago that Hollywood is home to a lot of pedophiles with massive industry influence. Feldman confirmed his own abuse and said his friend and acting partner Corey Haim had been abused even worse than Feldman himself. Apparently, Haim and other young actors were frequently passed around by older executives and agents, in what Feldman likened to a “pedophile ring” of sorts. Said “The Goonies” actor, “I was surrounded by pedophiles. Literally surrounded. They were everywhere.”
It isn’t a particularly surprising tale. “Different Strokes” actor Todd Bridges descended into drug use and madness after his success as a child actor, largely due to sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of adults he’d been left with during his years of filming. He’s since cleaned up his act but has been very vocal about how vulnerable kids in the industry are to perverts.
However, this isn’t limited to a time gone by. Rumblings are growing louder and louder that one of Hollywood’s biggest producers of children’s entertainment is about to be outed as a major incubator for pedophile executives and their twisted manipulations.
Dan Schneider is a former actor and producer at Nickelodeon. He is responsible for nearly every one of their biggest successes in the last 20 years. Schneider has produced and written the shows that have given us breakout stars like Arianna Grande, Amanda Bynes and Victoria Justice.
Schneider has also been the subject of some very disturbing and consistent rumors for years. One need only search his name on the internet to find pretty damning rumors about him going back years. There are stories of his foot fetishes and how he acts them out on young extras alone in his office. There are stories about his relationships with his underage teenage stars and how they led to spin-off shows for the girls or blacklisting for those who didn’t participate.
Over the years many anonymous actors and users have told their stories on forums like Reddit and in chat rooms.
One of the greatest examples of an alleged child predator producer is Dan Schneider, who created and wrote Zoey 101, All That, Victorious, iCarly, The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, and What I Like About You, and is the most successful writer/tv executive in Childrens Entertainment Television for the last thirty years.
Robert Downey Jr. allegedly wrote the following statement about Dan Schneider on Crazy Days and Nights under the screen name Himmmm:
Hes a monster. The WORST predator alive. And if you wonder why nobody will confront or charge him? Hes in charge of multiple HIT SHOWS for Nick which rakes in oceans of money. Tens of millions of dollars multiplied by many years and many shows (not to mention his merchandising royalties). So Viacom-Nick warn him to cool it – then pay for his damn lawyers.
What about the parents? No tweener parent who shoved their kid into the limelight from birth is going to cross him either, and risk career suicide and loss of revenue (and residuals and future career). No matter how bad it ****s up the kids. Especially if theres MULTIPLE kid actors in the family. And the kids agents are complicit too. Just ask the Spears family. A LOT of settlements get paid out of Viacoms accounts.
There have been rumors swirling about Dan Schneider for quite some time. Rumors that he is the father Jamie Lynn Spears daughter, got Amanda Bynes pregnant and paid for her abortion, and took the virginity of countless Nickelodeon starlettes. A quick Google search will show you how many people are catching onto this guy and questioning his innocence.
There was also a recent post on Reddits r/TIL section about Schneider, and most of the comments highlight his creepy behavior and the fact that hes an alleged pedophile. One commenter even made an allegation about being paid $100 to have her feet tickled by Dan in the privacy of his office while working as an extra on The Amanda Show.
Much like a high-ranking priest, Dan Schneider (and many others like him) will probably never be exposed, unfortunately. But hey, thats showbiz, baby!
Completely independent of this story, I happened to be chatting with a former child actor over a week ago. We were discussing Weinstein and she told me that in her youth she worked on one of Schneider’s shows very briefly. She told me, “My friend was molested by that man…on set. Everyone knew it. No one said a word.”
She also said that he told her she was too fat to be famous. She was 11.
If Schneider is the monster people seem to believe he is, some things do fall into place. Jamie Lynn Spears was on track to eclipse her older sister in fame when she dropped out of Hollywood in “disgrace” because of her unplanned pregnancy. To this day she has never said a word about the real father of her child (and kudos to her for bringing her baby into the world). Amanda Bynes is an extremely gifted performer but tragically lost contact with reality for a while. She went on a now infamous twitter rant blaming her parents for basically making her a prostitute. It makes a lot more sense when you put it in the context of a Dan Schneider.
One Twitter user went to the trouble of compiling a collection of scenes from Schneider’s most famous shows. When seen in conjunction with each other they do point to a troubling pattern, to say the least.
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909176761325375488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909181917702049792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909183925012123650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909185168757395456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909186328897650688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909188098264887299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909188700021682177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909189056298459136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909196157020237824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909220604418633728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909231400355876864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909232092894121984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
http://twitter.com/soberloren/status/909233878707171328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fkiradavis%2F2017%2F10%2F24%2Fnext-big-hollywood-sex-scandal-already-breaking…at-nickelodeon%2F
This thread goes on forever and is well worth a look.
Sure, these are all rumors and conjecture right now, but so were the Weinstein rumors and we are now seeing the shocking scope of his behavior and the resulting coverup. It is important to look at this issue as one aspect of a much larger problem.
Recently Nickelodeon fired “The Loud House” showrunner Chris Savino after allegations of his sexual harassment of female colleagues surfaced. Almost a dozen women have come forward with accusations, and Savino has since issued a statement of admission and apology.
Two years ago a documentary on Hollywood pedophilia (An Open Secret – a film I intend to review here in the coming days) told the harrowing story of convicted pedophiles who are still working in Hollywood. They covered the story of Brian Peck, a producer/actor who pleaded guilty to child molestation back in 2004, served a quarter of his sentence and went back to work at Nickelodeon. The charge was brought against him by a child actor on one of his Nickelodeon shows. The actor remained anonymous and managed to keep working, despite the very rare victory of seeing his Tinsel Town abuser imprisoned. Not for nothing, Brian Peck is a good friend of director Brian Singer, who has also been accused over the years of pedophilia and sexual harassment.
Peck still works in the industry to this day.
This is still mostly rumors and conjectures. No accusations about Dan Schneider can be legally corroborated at this point.
But if I were that that dude, I’d be making plans to get out of Dodge. The witch hunt is on, and this is one time in history it might ensnare some actual witches.