Dan Schneider sues Quiet On Set producers for defamation

Nickelodeon child endangerment documentary Quiet On Set is now the subject of a lawsuit from its main focus, Dan Schneider. Per TMZ, the creator of such Nickelodeon shows as The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, and iCarly, Schneider filed a defamation lawsuit against producers of the documentary series. He claims the series implied that he sexually abused child actors and employees he worked with at Nickelodeon. Lawyers for the beleaguered children’s television producer accused the series of manipulating footage to give the impression that Schneider was a pedophile. While Schneider accepts blame for inappropriate behavior in his career, he denies that he was connected to any of the child sexual abuse discussed in the series. The suit says he conceded that there were two child sexual abusers on these shows, but he had “no knowledge of their abuse” and maintains that he “was not a child sexual abuser.”

Schneider’s attorneys claim that the producers of the series “destroyed [his] reputation and legacy through the false statements” for “the sake of clickbait, ratings, viewers—or put differently, money.”

“They went beyond reporting the truth and falsely implied that I was involved in or facilitated horrific crimes for which actual child predators have been prosecuted and convicted,” Schneider said in a statement. “I have no objection to anyone highlighting my failures as a boss, but it is wrong to mislead millions of people to the false conclusion that I was in any way involved in heinous acts like those committed by child predators.”

Many of the allegations against Schneider are a bit murky. While he has never been outright accused of sexual abuse, some of the interviewees in Quiet On Set say he “made” his actors “do things that were very weird,” often describing them as overtly sexual. Schneider believes that the show’s “manipulative use of editing and photographs to conflate Schneider” with sexual abusers Brian Peck and Jason Handy. “The only reason to include Schneider’s image in this context was to falsely equate Schneider with Peck; the viewer is left to infer that just as Peck was a child sexual abuser, so was Schneider,” the suit states. But as the series notes, a 2021 investigation into Schneider by ViacomCBS, which owned Nickelodeon at the time, found no evidence directly linking Schneider to inappropriate sexual behavior.

What the investigation did find was Schneider has temper issues, a pattern of verbal abuse, and a penchant for posting feet pics of his young stars. Now, obviously, the latter could be construed as sexually inappropriate behavior, but Schneider maintains this allegation is “ridiculous” and his “comedy was totally innocent.” In 2022, he was also accused of gender discrimination and requesting massages from his adult female colleagues. Schneider agrees that was not appropriate.