After coming of age on the sets of All That and its spin-off series Kenan & Kel in the 1990s, Kenan Thompson is speaking out about Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, an Investigation Discovery docuseries that details alleged abuse and wrongdoing at kids network Nickelodeon. “It’s tough. It’s a tough subject, you know?” Thompson said on Wednesday’s episode of Tamron Hall. “It’s tough for me because I can’t really speak on things that I never witnessed, you know what I’m saying? Because all these things happened after I left, basically.”
Former network creator Dan Schneider, who exited Nickelodeon in 2018 amid toxicity allegations, is frequently accused of fostering an unsafe work environment at the network in the docuseries. Thompson attempted to distance himself from Schneider while addressing the project. “Dan wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that,” he explained. “I mean, he got a ‘created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner, so our worlds wasn’t really overly overlapping like that, outside of All That, necessarily. And then all of that negativity kinda started happening outside of our tenure there, you know what I mean? So I wasn’t really aware of a lot of it.”
On IMDb, Schneider appears to have been involved in numerous Thompson-led projects. He has writing credits on 11 Kenan & Kel episodes, and is credited as a co-executive producer on every episode of the show’s first two seasons. Schneider also wrote and produced multiple episodes of All That that Thompson appeared in, and holds a screenwriter and co-producer credit on Good Burger, the movie spinoff of the popular recurring All That segment starring Thompson and Kel Mitchell.
Since the series, Schneider has issued a video apology for his misconduct and even mentioned Thompson while refuting claims of racism on his sets. “Diversity has always been very important to me in my shows,” Schneider said. “If you go back to the very first Nickelodeon show I ever made, that’s very evident, as it is in the second one, and then the first movie I ever made for Nickelodeon which starred Kenan and Kel, and every show I did after that had a lead Black actor in it. I’m very proud of that. It’s very important to me, and not only am I proud that they were in my shows, I’m exceptionally proud of the achievements they’ve had beyond my shows. They’ve gone on to bigger and better things and that gives me a great sense of pride.”
The docuseries’ biggest bombshell comes from former network star Drake Bell, who says he was sexually abused by his vocal coach Brian Peck, whom he met on the set of The Amanda Show. Peck was convicted on sexual abuse charges in October 2004, sentenced to 16 months in prison, and ordered to register as a sex offender. “My heart goes out to anybody that’s been victimized, or their families,” Thompson said of Quiet on Set. “I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out and it’s putting things on display, stories that need to be told for accountability’s sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my costars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that is really tough.”
Nickelodeon previously told Vanity Fair in a statement that it “investigates all complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace” and that it has “adopted numerous safeguards over the years.” During Wednesday’s episode, Tamron Hall noted that the network had reiterated its commitment to “investigate all of the allegations.”
“Investigate more,” Thompson replied. “It’s supposed to be a safe place for kids. And to hear all about that is just like, ‘How dare you?’”
A follow-up episode of Quiet on Set, titled “Breaking the Silence,” will premiere April 7 on Investigation Discovery and then stream on Max.