Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV has opened the floodgates on Dan Schneider and the toxic culture at Nickelodeon. Some All That cast members spoke about their experiences with Schneider in the ID docuseries, but cast member Lori Beth Denberg has now come forward with her own allegations in a new interview with Business Insider. ’90s kids remember Denberg as the host of the sketch “Vital Information,” one of the show’s most popular segments. Behind the scenes, she says her relationship with the show’s creator was a “weird, abusive friendship” that evolved into an uncomfortable sexual power imbalance.
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Denberg was 17 when she was cast, and her relationship with Schneider (10 years her senior) began as a mentorship. When she was 19, their interactions took a turn for the sexual. She remembers multiple occasions of him showing her porn, and giving each other massages when she slept over his house. Once, she recalls him commenting on her breasts at a dinner with All That writers and crew members; when she threw a dinner roll at him, he “screamed” at her and stormed out. In a private incident, she shares that she won a bet for Schneider to give her a massage and he “also fondled and put his mouth on her breasts.” Though Denberg was of age at the time, she now recognizes the power imbalance, and her reluctance to stop Schneider lest he damage her career. “I couldn’t have been more green,” she says. “I couldn’t have been more vulnerable.”
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Schneider denied Denberg’s story in a statement to BI, calling her accusations “wildly exaggerated and, in most cases, false.” He said, “As I have previously stated, there were times, particularly in the early years of my career, that I made mistakes and exhibited poor judgment as a leader,” Schneider said. “If I did that with respect to Lori Beth, I sincerely apologize to her. But I cannot apologize for things I did not do.”
Interestingly, there’s another major Nickelodeon power player implicated in Denberg’s account of her time at the network: Brian Robbins, the newly announced co-CEO of Paramount Global. Robbins was a writer on Head Of The Class (the comedy series Schneider starred in before becoming a writer himself) and was a producer on All That, Kenan & Kel, The Amanda Show, and What I Like About You. Robbins and Schneider were reportedly friends, and sources tell BI that he was well aware of the showrunner’s temper tantrums and on-set massages from crew members.
More specifically, Denberg says she went to Robbins in an attempt to advocate for her former co-star Amanda Bynes. During a visit to The Amanda Show set, Denberg observed the 13-year-old star looked “gaunt” and became upset by Schneider’s last-minute line changes. When Denberg tearfully brought her concerns for Bynes’ well-being to Robbins, he “did not ask any follow-up questions but told her Schneider hadn’t had it easy either,” per BI. (She says she had another meeting with Albie Hecht, then president of Nickelodeon Entertainment, to express the same concerns.) Denberg later found out she had been banned from the Amanda Show set following her complaints.
Schneider was finally, eventually ousted in 2018, but obviously, Robbins has continued his career at Nickelodeon to ultimately rise to the very tip-top of the food chain. While it seems clear that Schneider was indeed running a toxic workplace for many years and that he abused his power in myriad inappropriate ways, it’s also clear that the buck didn’t stop with him. The network itself cultivated that environment and shielded him from consequences for many years, and given Robbins’ ascension, that culture is still very much rooted in the company to this day. You can read the full Insider piece here.