Open Secret: Dan Schneider

Former darling of Nickelodeon Amanda Bynes, who has admitted to struggling with body dysmorphia and substance abuse, as well as other trauma responses, was recently checked in to a psychiatric facility after a sustained episode which saw her wandering the streets of LA late at night, unclothed. I want to make one thing clear right away, as someone who has also experienced breaks with reality due to trauma: Amanda suffering with her mental well being is in no way an indictment of her character. Societally it seems easier for us to accept people’s symptoms (especially our own), when they manifest as depression and anxiety. What is more difficult however, is to understand and hold space for someone when they are going through a psychotic or dissociative episode. Part of the reason why that may be, is because often, our more unflattering symptoms point to a deeper problem that’s not being addressed within our lives, and within our culture. One that may make us uncomfortable to look at, and call in to question the values we share, and the very society we live in. That problem is the rampant grooming and abuse of children right under our noses, in Hollywood and across the world. The psychological and physiological damage of which can manifest in someone’s adulthood, to their horrible detriment.

Dan Schneider has never been convicted of any criminal activity, so the information I will provide here is “alleged” (I use that term loosely). Though, I wonder, has Schneider never been prosecuted because he is innocent, or because he was, and apparently still is, a powerful man in the entertainment industry, and the topic of child endangerment is still taboo?

Let’s get into the rumors and allegations around Dan, who some say is the Harvey Weinstein of child actors, and who I believe more than likely preyed on Amanda Bynes, as well as others entrusted to his care.

Schneider was let go from Nickelodeon in 2018 due to allegations of misogyny and of creating a hyper-sexual environment during his time producing multiple kids shows. Actors like Daniella Monet, who worked on Victorious, spoke out about scenes she filmed that had implicit sexual intent behind them (She referenced one scene when she was asked to seductively eat a pickle while applying lip gloss). There is another scene in Sam and Cat of Ariana Grande lying upside down on a bed, pouring water all over herself. Another is of her attempting to “get juice out of a potato” and moaning while mimicking hand gestures that can easily be read as eluding to a sex act. I’m not going to mince words here: I believe what Dan was really doing by adding content like this, content that was overtly sexual, but could still be played off by him as “innocent”, was winking to other men in the industry with a proclivity for underage girls. Enacting his fantasies out on a national audience, hiding nuggets that he could indulge in later in children’s shows watched by millions, likely gave him perverse satisfaction.

It’s clear to me, and I’m sure everyone else familiar with him, that Dan also had a foot fetish, something he denies and claims was just innocent fun, a playful way to interact with his audience. Let me pose a question, would you think an adult male in your life who had a bizarre obsession with children’s feet had innocent or playful intentions? Would you excuse that behavior in your significant other?

Former Nickelodeon star Alexa Nikolas, who recently made the rounds online due to her activism, said that Dan actually used to pay them extra money to take photos of their feet. She also claimed that he would rear his head whenever they were doing wardrobe fittings and pocket the photos of the young girls taken during those vulnerable moments. As a result of Dan’s abuse, Alexa ended up quitting Zoey 101, referencing times when he belittled and bullied her.

It’s important to also draw attention to some of Dan’s old tweets that clearly displayed his interest in procuring feet pictures. The vernacular he used, “we’ll retweet and follow until our fingers get sore” after asking his young audience to send him images of the bottom of their feet, is especially disturbing to me, like he’s salivating at the mouth.

Amanda has never officially made a statement against Schneider. However, people on the internet are reading between the lines and, I think, rightly speculating about his influence on her development after a video of her as a child in a hot tub with the disgraced producer, resurfaced. As of March 27th, Bynes is still in a psychiatric facility, and will likely be held there for a while longer. Her 9 year conservatorship that began in 2013, ended only recently, in March of last year.

It’s no secret that Dan and men like him, especially if they are in positions of power and influence, can easily leverage the legal system against their victims. Since any sex crime involving a minor is sometimes difficult to prove after the fact, men have the advantage of threatening to sue for defamation or slander if anyone attempts to hold them accountable. That looming threat is often enough to silence people, and discourage them from outright saying what they know to be true, made even more difficult if someone has signed a non-disclosure agreement in the past. In the Vulnerable podcast with Christy Carlson Romano, Nichols told the host that people in the industry who’ve signed broad scope NDA’s, are even barred from speaking to their therapists about the trauma that occurred under it’s umbrella. This is a detriment to survivors seeking to heal what happened to them. Therapists of alleged victims can be subpoenaed by defense lawyers in court, their notes entered into public record and then used against the person whose been victimized: “see, they’re crazy.”

In 2004, Brian Peck, who worked alongside Schneider at Nickelodeon as a dialogue coach, and who was known for his role as Scuz in Return of The Living Dead, served 16 months in jail after he was found guilty of a lewd act against a child, and oral copulation of a person under 16. Originally, more counts were filed against him, adding: sodomy of a person under 16, attempted sodomy of a person under 16, sexual penetration by a foreign object, four counts of oral copulation of a person under 16, oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance, sending harmful matter, and using a child for sex acts. The victim optioned to remain anonymous, since he was concerned that it would ruin his career prospects going forward. Some speculate it may have been Drake Bell, who has gone on to have his own run ins with the law having to do with child endangerment, though this has never been confirmed. Despite being a literal child sex offender, the convicted Peck, after he got out of jail, went on to act on the Disney Channel show The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, in 2007.

In 2005, California police arrested a convicted sex offender who was hired at Nickelodeon to work as a production assistant. His name was Ezell Channel, and he was arrested under suspicion of molesting a teenage boy. When the boys mother became suspicious of the amount of time Ezell was spending around her young son, she looked up his name on a nation wide database, and found he was cited for “lewd or lascivious acts” against a child under the age of 14. A background check that Nickelodeon must have performed, surely. Although, a background like Channel’s doesn’t seemed to have been a bug, but a feature of working at the Animation Studio in the early to late 2000’s. In April 2003, another production assistant, Jason Michael Handy, was arrested for “lewd acts” with a child under the age of 14. The L.A. Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit opened an investigation into him in January of the same year, after it was alleged he inappropriately touched a 9 year old girl in Glendale. The LAPD found that Handy was using his connections at Nickelodeon to prey on children. It’s not hard to see a pattern being established here. It’s clear that the rot was sanctioned by, and went all the way to the top of the power structure.

The molestation of an innocent child is soul murder, it is theft of the highest order. It can disable people when their nervous systems attempt to reckon with the trauma of what happened to them, as adults. As someone who has experienced that dissociative hell hole myself, as someone who still goes through ongoing psychological torture due to what happened to me as a child, I write this with the utmost conviction: predators deserve far more punitive measures than they are currently receiving. It is no longer the time to sweep their egregious crimes under the rug, to refuse to acknowledge them because it makes us uncomfortable. Righteous anger is important here. Allowing people to get away with actions that severely diminish another’s capacity to navigate the world competently and inhabit their own bodies, that rob them of their sanity and often make them turn to substances to cope, is a grave injustice.

When looked at from the vantage point of Amanda potentially being victimized by predators at Nickelodeon, what she is going through now, what she has been going through for years, should be seen as evidence of a crime. Yes, being in the limelight as a child would be difficult for anyone, but Bynes’ struggles over the years seem to suggest there is something more sinister going on here. Many victims of Weinstein refused to come forward until a few way showers were brave enough to speak out, thus opening the floodgates to what was to become a watershed moment in Hollywood. I wonder if something similar has the potential to happen with Schneider. I wonder how many victims are gagged because of NDA’s, which should theoretically be legally null and void if a crime has been committed. I wonder how many actors are suffering in relative silence because of Dan and his ilk. I’m reminded of the quote “what’s done in the dark always comes to light.” I hope it’s fitting in this context.

There was a documentary made in 2014, called “An Open Secret” that seems to have been suppressed by the media, for obvious reasons:

From IMBD: “AN OPEN SECRET looks at the lives of children betrayed and abandoned by a system that essentially funnels them towards sexual predators without any oversight or regard for their safety. It documents not only these young peoples’ experiences, but also how some have emerged stronger for their speaking out. It begs the question of why children working in entertainment aren’t afforded the same protections they are afforded at school, and argues for more effective treatment and stronger penalties for child sex offenders.”

The documentary details a predatory network of opportunistic pedophiles in the entertainment industry, who meticulously curated their careers in the best environment that they knew would afford them access to children.

This is a discussion that has been a long time coming. People have been attempting to get this information out there to the public, with not much success. Although this problem is one that most of us are aware of, attempting to hold systems, and the predators who benefit from them, accountable, has proven to be difficult.

Amanda Bynes deserved better, and with renewed interest in Nickelodeons dark past, I hope that one day the people who’ve driven the criminal activity in Hollywood are properly dealt with by the legal system, and shunned as social pariahs. I’d be willing to bet that this story has the potential to be much bigger than we currently even know. If I were Dan Schneider, I would certainly be worried. It may not be his time, yet. But one day, he may still have a reckoning of Weinstein level proportions.