Former Nickelodeon star Matthew Underwood has spoken out about his experience with sexual harassment and assault, following the recent release of Investigation Discovery’s explosive docuseries, “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.”
Underwood, who played the role of Logan Reese on kids’ show, “Zoey 101” from 2005 to 2008, took to his personal Instagram account over the weekend to detail traumatic experiences he allegedly endured while working for Nickelodeon and prior, citing online threats as the reason for his disclosures. “I’m going to share something with you that I never thought I’d have to talk about publicly, as it’s honestly none of your business anyway,” the actor began, addressing social media users.
“When I was 19, I was sexually harassed and then assaulted by my agent at the time, who had spent a decent amount of time building trust with me as a friend and mentor,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “My trust was betrayed and my self-image was crushed. I reported him to the agency and he has since been fired — although he is still active in the industry. This experience provoked my move away from L.A. and ended my pursuit of acting.”
The actor went on to state that he was sharing his story because people had been “blowing up my email telling me they hope me and my mom die” and calling him a “pedophile defender.”
“I imagine many of my friends in the business are being equally harassed if they aren’t joining in the chorus,” Underwood wrote, “so I’m sharing this with hope that some of you can recognize that just because a person doesn’t shout from the rooftops that pedophiles are bad or that people can suck — that does not mean they don’t have their own reasons for staying silent, good reasons, personal reasons.”
“Quiet on Set” details the reportedly rampant abuse and toxicity that beset some of Nickelodeon’s child actors and female staffers in the late 1990s through the mid-2000s; chiefly, the four-part docuseries marked the first time that former “Drake and Josh” star Drake Bell opened up about being sexually assaulted by his former dialogue and acting coach at Nickelodeon, Brian Peck. In addition to Bell’s claims, “Quiet on Set” also focuses on Dan Schneider, the mind behind “Zoey 101” and one of the network’s most prolific creators, painting him as the perpetrator of said inappropriate workplace culture. Notably, Alexa Nikolas, who co-starred with Underwood on “Zoey 101,” was featured as an interviewee in “Quiet on Set” and has maintained a strong and outspoken stance about Schneider’s reported behavior.
Underwood continued by observing that he “had never had a bad experience working on set of a Nickelodeon show, and I never had a bad experience with Dan,” adding that he likes “to believe people have the capacity to be better humans, and Dan appears to recognize that he had been an asshole in his past. I like to believe he is fully capable of being a creator and coworker everyone can enjoy working with.”
The actor concluded his statement by arguing, “Of course I don’t f**king support pedophiles.” He implored the internet to “Please stop wishing death upon my family, and please reconsider harassing other actors who wish to maintain their privacy — you never know who has already been a victim of the hell you’re wishing upon them.”
Bell in the docuseries expressed a similar sentiment about Schneider, stating that he personally never had a negative experience with the Nickelodeon creator, who he claimed even supported him throughout his ordeal with Peck.
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