The tv producer Dan Schneider filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday towards the creators of the documentary collection “Quiet on Set,” which aired accounts of sexual abuse and different inappropriate habits on units at Nickelodeon, the place Schneider was as soon as a star creator of content material.
The five-episode collection, “Quiet on Set: The Darkish Aspect of Youngsters TV,” included interviews from former workers who denounced Schneider as a boss and objected to sexualized humor in his reveals, main him to launch a video in March by which he apologized for a few of his habits on the job, comparable to soliciting massages on set from workers members.
However the present additionally centered on Nickelodeon workers who had been convicted of kid intercourse crimes — together with Brian Peck, a dialogue coach for Nickelodeon, who was sentenced to jail for sexually abusing the “Drake & Josh” star Jared Drake Bell.
Schneider’s lawsuit accuses the documentary of improperly conflating him with those that had been convicted of abusing youngsters and took situation with segments of the collection that his attorneys stated “falsely and repeatedly state or indicate that Schneider is a baby sexual abuser.”
“Schneider would be the first to confess that a few of what they stated is true,” the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom, stated of the filmmakers. “At occasions, he was blind to the ache that a few of his habits prompted sure colleagues, subordinates and forged members. He’ll remorse and atone for this habits the remainder of his life. However one factor he’s not — and the one factor that may without end mar his popularity and profession each previous and current — is a baby sexual abuser.”
Schneider declined to be interviewed for the collection, as a substitute issuing an announcement that was included within the documentary, by which he denied numerous accusations leveled towards him and stated that “the whole lot that occurred on the reveals I ran was rigorously scrutinized by dozens of concerned adults.”
The listed defendants within the case embody Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Max, the place the collection was streamed; Maxine Productions and Sony Footage Tv, which produced it; and Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, who directed the collection. Not one of the events instantly responded to a request for remark.
Calling the collection a “hit job,” the lawsuit stated that in a number of cases viewers had been led to inaccurately infer that he was a baby sexual abuser, together with within the trailer, by which a collection of photographs and video clips of Schneider are adopted by the commercial of a “true crime occasion.”
“The hurt to Schneider’s popularity, profession, and enterprise, to say nothing of his personal overwhelming emotional misery, can’t be understated,” stated the lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified quantity of damages.
The lawsuit stated that Schneider’s authorized representatives had despatched a letter demanding that the collection “not embody any statements that allege or indicate that Schneider engaged in any legal or sexual misconduct,” and that the defendants’ lawyer responded that there have been no “statements” that defamed him.
Beginning within the Nineties, Schneider created, scripted and produced a string of hits for Nickelodeon together with “All That,” “The Amanda Present,” “Drake & Josh” and “Zoey 101.”
However within the spring of 2018, Schneider and Nickelodeon abruptly issued a joint assertion saying their separation. Virtually in a single day, he largely disappeared from public view.
In 2021, The New York Occasions reported that earlier than that announcement, ViacomCBS, the dad or mum firm of Nickelodeon, had investigated Schneider and located that many individuals he labored with considered him as verbally abusive. The corporate’s assessment discovered no proof of sexual misconduct by Schneider.
The latest documentary collection included details about how Schneider and Nickelodeon parted methods, and reported that the investigation into his conduct “didn’t discover any proof of inappropriate sexual habits” or “inappropriate relationships with youngsters.”
The collection was a scores hit and stirred up conversations concerning the appropriateness of among the materials on youngsters’s tv. Critics stated the reveals contained barely veiled sexual innuendo, and Schneider, in his apology video, stated he could be prepared to chop out components of the present that had been upsetting to folks, years after they first aired. On the identical time, although, he recommended that the criticism got here from adults taking a look at jokes written for kids “by means of their lens.”
