Alexa Nikolas, who starred in Zoey 101 and was featured in the ID docuseries Quiet On Set, responded to Nickelodeon's Dan Schneider's apology.
All this stems from after disgraced kids' show producer Schneider apologized on video after watching the shocking series that exposed how brutal Nickelodeon was for its stars, producers, and other workers until his control.
Nikolas, who has a YouTube page called Eat Predators, which advocates for the end of predatory behavior in entertainment, let loose on him after his remarks, THR reports. She starred as Nicole Bristow in the hit series from 2004 to 2006 and was also featured on the ID doc.
Alexa Nikolas responds to Dan Schneider's remarks
In the YouTube video, she watches Schneider's apology while being interviewed by BooG!E. The actress has a microphone, and behind her, an orange blimp looks like the iconic Nickelodeon logo but says ‘Sickelodeon.'
She starts by being disappointed that BooG!E reached out to Dan instead of the child actors on the show. From there, the Zoey 101 star basically isn't having any of it.
Dan says in the clip, “Watching over the past two nights was very difficult, with me facing my past behaviors — some of which are embarrassing and I regret, and I definitely wish some people a pretty strong apology.”
She then pauses the video and gives her heated response.
“He's embarrassed? I'm sorry, him centering what he feels is bizarre to me,” she says. “It's like you literally…you are awful, to be quite honest with you. You're embarrassed? Not embarrassed enough! Not embarrassed enough, to like, to go reach out to the people you actually harmed.”
“That's horrible. What is happening?” she states next about how Dan is using BooG!E as a platform after racially discriminating against him back in the day.
Dan apologizes and tells everyone how he made them uncomfortable at Nickelodeon.
“Uncomfortable? You exploited children!” she remarked. “These are children. Children that YOU exploited.”
After viewing the beginning part of his apology, the actress said, “I don't feel any remorse from him.”
“I'm going to cut to the chase you: you don't feel anything, Dan. You have no idea what accountability is. You're searching for it, maybe, but you haven't landed on it. That's for sure. This is not the way,” she continued.
Nikolas expanded her remarks to THR and described that Schneider kept Polaroids of her in outfits and his wardrobe requests.
“I was told [I had to wear the shorts] so that nobody sees my butt,” she reflects. “It's humiliating for a child to be told, ‘We just want to make sure that your butt doesn't show!' You look back at that and you're like, ‘Why don't you just give me clothes that don't show my butt?' Like, that's freaking weird! Dan wants these skirts; he's the one handpicking them and he has all creative control. It's pretty scary looking back at the experience.”
What's next for Dan Schneider?
Judging by the reaction of Quiet On Set and stars like Alexa Nikolas, it's doubtful he'll return to Nickelodeon soon after being dismissed in 2018. However, according to PEOPLE, he was listed as a co-creator of the 2020 show Danger Force.
In 2021, he told The New York Times that he was working on a pilot for a different network. He described it as “ambitious and very different” from anything he'd done previously.
After his apology and the controversy surrounding him, his past behaviors won't simply be brushed under the rug. Nickelodeon has some work to do to make up for all of the terrible incidents that seem to have occurred during Schneider's reign.
Quiet On Set can be watched on ID and Max.
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