Former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider is suing the people and organizations guiding “Quiet on Set: The Darkish Facet of Little ones Television,” saying the explosive docuseries defamed him by falsely implying he sexually abused the small children he labored with.
The 4-component Investigation Discovery docuseries, which aired in March and experienced a reward episode fall in April, highlighted interviews with quite a few crew customers and previous youngster stars who alleged abuse, inappropriate conduct and a poisonous operate surroundings although showing on some strike Nickelodeon reveals generated by Schneider.
Schneider, who was driving hits like “The Amanda Show” and “Drake and Josh,” parted strategies with Nickelodeon in 2018. He does not surface in the docuseries, but responded to quite a few allegations designed with published statements aired during the exhibit.
The lawsuit, submitted Wednesday in Los Angeles County Outstanding Courtroom, describes the docuseries’ portrayal of Schneider as a “hit position.” It statements Schneider experienced no expertise of and was not complicit in the sexual abuse alleged in the sequence, and that he experienced condemned the abuse following discovering of it.
“And, critically, [Schneider] was not a little one sexual abuser himself,” states the grievance, a copy of which was attained by NBC Information. “But for the sake of clickbait, scores, and views—or set otherwise, money—Defendants have ruined Schneider’s name and legacy by means of the phony statements and implications that Schneider is accurately that.”
Warner Brothers Discovery, Maxine Productions, Sony Pics Television and the series’ directors, Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, are named as defendants.
Study much more of NBC News’ coverage of ‘Quiet on Set’:
Reps for the defendants did not promptly react to requests for remark built by NBC Information on Wednesday.
“Quiet on Set” expanded on the allegations of gender discrimination and a hostile function atmosphere initially reported by Organization Insider in 2022. It involved interviews with a wide array of people, including two feminine writers who spoke about the gender discrimination lawsuit they filed from the network.
Actor Drake Bell, of the Nickelodeon strike “Drake & Josh,” also spoke for the initially time about the sexual abuse he allegedly professional at the arms of his previous dialogue mentor Brian Peck, who was convicted of sexually abusing a small in 2004.
Schneider, who apologized for numerous of his behaviors immediately after it aired, wrote in a assertion Wednesday that when the docuseries truthfully showcased “mistakes I created and bad judgment I exhibited in the course of my time at Nickelodeon,” observing “Quiet on Set” and the reactions it garnered left him with “no option but to acquire authorized motion versus the people behind it.”
“I have no objection to anybody highlighting my failures as a manager, but it is mistaken to mislead hundreds of thousands of persons to the wrong summary that I was in any way concerned in heinous functions like all those dedicated by little one predators,” Schneider wrote. “I owe it to myself, my family, and the numerous fantastic individuals included in generating these shows to set the history straight.”
Schneider is trying to find preliminary or long term injunctive relief, which include modifying or removing all or a part of “Quiet on Set” and its trailer, as effectively as damages for reputational, economic and emotional harm, according to the lawsuit.
Even though “Quiet on Set” did not explicitly identify him as a sexual abuser, Schneider’s complaint states that all over the series and its trailer, sure voiceovers and graphics ended up juxtaposed or edited with visual depictions in approaches that manufactured them “purposefully and intentionally defamatory in that they falsely and regularly point out or indicate that Schneider is a little one sexual abuser and dedicated crimes in this regard—and have been interpreted as these types of by a great number of normal, normal or affordable viewers.”
The grievance also statements the sequence refused to job interview witnesses who did not match their “false and defamatory narrative,” and that “Quiet on Set” has been accused of currently being “dishonest or deceptive” about the goal of its queries for the duration of witness interviews.
It cited various on-line responses and posts as proof that viewers interpreted the docuseries as revealing Schneider to be a sexual offender.
Schneider said he has dropped “valuable deals” from significant networks or platforms in the wake of “Quiet on Established,” and that it is now “virtually impossible” for him to acquire these chances.
“Schneider’s status has been irreparably weakened as a result of Defendants’ defamatory statements,” the lawsuit states. “Schneider carries on to endure emotional discomfort and suffering, and psychological distress, as a end result of Defendants’ defamatory statements, as well as monetary and occupation damages.”
Daysia Tolentino contributed.
