Ariana Grande breaks silence on 'devastating' Nickelodeon allegations

Three months after the explosive docuseries on identification Calm on set After exposing Nickelodeon's once-toxic environment, Ariana Grande admitted she is “retiring” from her time on the children's TV network.

Grande addressed the “survivors who have come forward” in a new interview on Penn Badgley's podcast, Podcrushed. “There are no words to describe how devastating it is to hear about this. I think the environment just needs to be made a lot safer everywhere,” she said in the episode released Wednesday.

Grande began her television career playing Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon series. Victorious and its repercussions, Sam and Cat. Both shows were led by creator Dan Schneider, whose allegedly abusive and inappropriate behavior was the focus. Calm on set.

Grande said her relationship with her time at Nickelodeon “is currently and has changed, and I'm reprocessing a lot of what the experience was.”

In March, after the release of Calm on the set, some bizarre and sexually suggestive clips of Grande as her character Cat resurfaces and goes viral. In one scene, she tries to squeeze the juice out of a potato, moaning, “Come on, give up the juice.” » In another, she puts her big toe in her mouth.

Grande said on Podcrushed that in the past she thought the “innuendos” in some of her scenes were “cool,” but that “now, looking back on certain clips, I'm like, 'Damn, really?' “” She added that she was surprised that “so many adults” approved of these scenes.

“I think the environment needs to be made safer if children want to act,” said the Wicked star added. “I think there should be therapists, I think there should be parents allowed to be wherever they want.”