On June 12, Gossip Girl alum, Penn Badgley, featured pop star Ariana Grande on his podcast, Podcrushed, just a few days after Grande’s “The Boy Is Mine” music video, starring Badgley as her love interest, dropped. Needless to say, fans have been loving this unlikely collab, and after Badgley’s podcast episode, they’re loving it even more.
During the podcast, Grande responded to the Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV documentary, which premiered on Investigation Discovery and Max in March 2024. The documentary largely discussed Dan Schnieder’s – the creator of many shows Grande starred in such as Victorious and Sam & Cat – alleged sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior.
Grande shared on the podcast that since she was a child, she’s always been in the limelight and has first-hand child acting experience. She revealed that as a kid, she was involved in a group that would sing for different charity events and nursing homes. She even had her first public performance at 8 years old. “My nonna saw the ad in the newspaper to sing the national anthem at the Panthers’ game, and she took me for my audition,” she shared.
Badgley’s co-host, Nava Kavelin, asked Grande, “What are your thoughts on child acting?” to which the singer replied, “The environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting… There should be therapists and parents allowed to be wherever they want to be.”
She added, “A lot of people don’t have the support they need to deal with some of the things that the survivors have come forward with. There’s not a word for how devastating that is to hear about.”
Grande further described her child acting experience, saying she has been “reprocessing” her “relationship to it.”
As for the exploitation of child actors that sadly occurs, Grande said, “It’s really taken advantage of how much it means to the young performer to get a laugh from ‘video village’… specifically about our show. We were convinced that was the cool thing about us, like we pushed the envelope with our humor,” she said of her shows Victorious and Sam & Cat.
“It all happened so quickly and now looking back on some of the clips I’m like ‘damn, really?’ The things that weren’t approved for the network were snuck onto our website or whatever it was. That is another discovery. I guess I’m upset.”
Grande concluded that support and therapy is necessary for rising child stars, in particular, but should be made available to all.
“There should be an element that is mandatory of therapy of a professional person to unpack what this experience of your life changing so drastically does to you at a young age, at any age.”
Grande’s bravery in this episode of Podcrushed is admirable and her words, prompting for change, were so powerful and necessary.