The reality of being a child star
Exposing the reality behind TV and the dark aspects of child stars
Graphic by Liana Sabnani
Liana Sabnani, Staff Writer
I always wanted to be a child star. I remember hearing numerous advertisements on the radio with the same promising words: “We will make you famous.” My mother, on the other hand, was extremely against my fantasies. I used to detest her, but now I thank her.
What these child stars have been through is purely disgusting. The number of horrific things they had to deal with is beyond my understanding. Recently, a documentary called “Quiet on Set” took the world by shock. Its taboo became widely known on social media, reaching even those who haven't watched it. It is truly tragic to gain insight through the documentary, that beneath all of Hollywood's glamor are filthy depths of exploitation and inhumanity.
Amanda Bynes. Drake Bell. Ariana Grande. Lindsay Lohan. Jamie Lynn Spears. Jennette McCurdy. Avan Jogia. Bryan Hearne. Victoria Justice. Companies exploited them and nearly ruined them for profit, with these names only representing a fraction of the total number. Bell and Bynes were the main focus of the documentary. Some of these celebrities became addicted to drugs and alcohol, while others used their hardships to establish a successful career, and some are no longer in the public eye, too traumatized to relive the experiences they suffered through.
Bynes is a child star and American actress who rose to fame in the late 1990s, thanks to her hit TV show "The Amanda Show." I never watched the show growing up, because I was not alive yet. But before I immersed myself in the realm of child stars, I watched a few clips. My reaction? I was crushed. Shattered. When I am interested in a subject like this one, I tend to wander into rabbit holes. This led me to discover her old Twitter account, registered under the name "Ashley Banks." Bynes created this account while being coerced against her will. She left several clues as to what was going on behind the scenes, including the fact that her boss, Dan Schneider, was responsible for impregnating her at the age of thirteen and forcing her to have a secret abortion. Bynes attempted to clear up suspicions about her identity by sharing a partial photograph of her driver's license in an effort to identify herself as the account holder.
Regardless, I believe it was her account, and considering the numerous stories that Nickelodeon stars have shared about Dan Schneider, it would not surprise me in the least. At the age of 16, Bynes filed to be taken out of her parents' custody in order to live with Schneider and his wife. Despite Bynes’ horrible relationship with her parents, it is odd that she would prefer to live with her employer. It makes me wonder what the motive behind all of this was. In the end, the emancipation was unsuccessful. After quitting acting in 2010, Bynes started having violent outbursts and emotional breakdowns in public. This led Bynes' parents, Lynn and Rick Bynes, to place her under a court-ordered conservatorship in 2013 when she was 27 years old, after she had previously been under psychiatric hold for allegedly setting a neighbor's driveway on fire. According to reports, after leaving the spotlight, she became addicted to drugs and, to this day, continues to suffer from bipolar disorder. The fact that we only know a small portion of what happened to her is incredibly tragic; sick people have covered it all up with sick lies, completely blind to the fact that they have destroyed such a young, talented individual.
Drake Bell is a well-known American musician and actor from the Nickelodeon TV series "Drake & Josh." Bell was the most widely recognized child star in the "Quiet on Set" documentary and one of the few who had made the decision to participate in it. He had described his toxic relationship with his acting coach in the documentary. Bell claims that over the course of several months, after acting coach Brian Peck had solidified his role in Bell's life, abuse occurred at Peck's home. Bell's father, who served as his manager at first, was concerned about Bell because he thought something was not right about Peck. However, when he tried to reach out to other people on set, they simply dubbed him homophobic due to his sexuality, which left him powerless. By persuading Bell that his father was stealing his money and shouldn't be his manager, Peck started to build tension between the young actor and his father. Bell began spending evenings at his coach's residence, and one morning he awoke to being sexually assaulted. At the age of 15, he stated that he did not know how to get out of the situation. He detailed how the abuse continued to worsen and how, one day, he had a breakdown in which he revealed all that occurred over the previous few months. After expressing his ordeal to his mother, she called the police, and Peck went to prison.
The fact that he was able to come forward on this documentary more than 20 years later and bring justice to his name is nothing short of impressive. I am hoping that by doing so, his story could potentially encourage other young actors and people everywhere to do the same and open up about what they have faced. Many claim that powerful figures provided "hush money" to keep the identities of the people who had mistreated these defenseless children confidential following Nickelodeon's downfall. One child star, McCurdy's memoir "I'm Glad My Mom Died," went into further detail about this, saying that although she declined the offer, she believes Grande, her rivaling costar, had accepted it. It is clear from viewing a few of Grande's scenes in the television series "Victorious" that she endured sexualization. Several photos of Schneider touching or filming her inappropriately have resurfaced, and in these brief video clips, other young stars in the cast, such as Justice, can be seen twitching or clearly uncomfortable when Schneider is around. Jogia, who played the character "Beck" in the series, claims he does not remember anything from his experience on set since he and the other cast members were always intoxicated or high on drugs.
As I have expressed many times, I find what these child stars have gone through to be horrific. It is insane how quickly the life inside them can be decimated. Hollywood is truly the most disgusting place, and I hope these kids are able to recover from what they were put through.
