Dan Schneider sues Quiet On Set producers for defamation

Television producer Dan Schneider, who wrote and produced multiple hit Nickelodeon shows from the late 90s to the early 2000s including iCarly, Victorious, Drake & Josh and Zoey 101, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the creators of recent docu-series Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. The five-episode series aired numerous accounts of sexual abuse on Nickelodeon sets where Schneider worked as the lead content creator.

Featuring interviews from both former employees and child actors, the documentary denounces Schneider’s inappropriate behaviour on sets, which prompted him to release a public apology video in March.

In the lawsuit, Schneider’s lawyers accuse the documentary of irreparably damaging his reputation, marking it a “hit job” and writing, “Schneider never sexually abused a child, nor has he been charged or convicted with sexually abusing a child. The trailer and Quiet On Set’s statements and implications to the contrary are both false and made with reckless and malicious disregard for the truth.”

The documentary also focused on two former Nickelodeon employees who were later convicted of sexual offenses, including dialogue coach Brian Peck, who was sentenced to prison after sexually abusing Drake & Josh star Jared Drake Bell.

Schneider’s lawyers claim that the series falsely conflated him with those who have been found guilty of child sex crimes, saying that he had “no knowledge of their abuse, was not complicit in the abuse, condemned the abuse once it was discovered and, critically, was not a child sexual abuser himself.”

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, named series producers Maxine Productions, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Brothers Discovery as defendants.

“Recently the docu-series Quiet On Set highlighted mistakes I made and poor judgement I exhibited during my time at Nickelodeon, most of which happened decades ago during my early career as a producer,” Schneider said in a recent statement to the Press Association. “There is no doubt that I was sometimes a bad leader.

“However, after seeing Quiet On Set and its trailer, and the reactions to them, I sadly have no choice but to take legal action against the people behind it.

“In their successful attempt to mislead viewers and increase ratings, they went beyond reporting the truth and falsely implied that I was involved in or facilitated horrific crimes for which actual child predators have been prosecuted and convicted.

“I have no objection to anyone highlighting my failures as a boss, but it is wrong to mislead millions of people to the false conclusion that I was in any way involved in heinous acts like those committed by child predators.

“I owe it to myself, my family, and the many wonderful people involved in making these shows to set the record straight.”