UPDATED 3/23, 3:30 p.m. ET: Ned’s Declassified School Survivor’s Guide main cast of Devon Werkheiser, Lindsey Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee followed up their distasteful joke with an apology to Drake Bell.
On the latest episode of Ned's Declassified Podcast Survival Guide, the trio clarified that they hadn't seen the Quiet on Set docuseries before joking about allegations made towards former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider and the network.
Early in the podcast, Werkheiser reflected on making a "super shit" comment that alluded to Bell being a sexual abuse victim.
"Everyone was asking us for our opinions on it, and I get it. Now, having seen the documentary, it’s so disturbing,” he said. "Now, we’ve watched it, and I get it. If I had just watchedm especially that third episode and then watched us joking like that … I would be like, ‘Are they sociopaths? Is something wrong with them?'"
Seemingly having viewed QOS, the trio broke down the treatment and power dynamics around Nickelodeon child actors while acknowledging their past insensitivity about the show.
“I hate that this happened. I hate that we compounded any trauma around this situation that means so much to each of us,” Shaw said around the 43-minute mark. “I am sorry. I know that that even when there wasn’t an intention or malice behind things people have done for me, I know that it has just helped me when people meet me where I am and recognize like, ‘Hey that was a gut punch, whether it was intentional or not.'”
Days before the latest podcast episode was posted, Devon Werkheiser also extended an apology to Bell on X.
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Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide cast members are under fire after making light of the allegations centered on Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider, a producer whose long list of projects spans everything from All That to Kenan & Kel to, yes, Ned’s.
As seen in a screen recording making the rounds this week, Devon Werkheiser joked about the abuse allegations featured in ID’s recently premiered Quiet on Set docuseries. The livestream, notably, took place on the official account for Werkheiser's podcast with fellow Ned's alumni Lindsey Shaw and Daniel Curtis Lee.
"Get back in your hole, Daniel! And give me your holes!" Werkheiser says in the clip. "Alright, we shouldn’t joke about this. We really shouldn’t. … Listen, our set was not like that. And no, it’s fucking awful. The Drake Bell shit is, that’s crazy to hear. That is fucked, man. And that never came out which is really wild."
Shortly after, Werkheiser questioned whether he and his former cast members should "joke like this," ultimately coming to the conclusion (in his opinion, anyway) that it can be beneficial.
"We can’t joke like this. Jesus," Werkheiser said. "Sometimes humor helps us move through things."
In the Quiet on Set finale, Drake Bell, former co-star of the Schneider-produced Drake & Josh, opened up about the abuse he says he suffered from dialogue coach, Brian Peck, who's now a registered sex offender.
"I addressed my statement to everyone in the room," Bell, who was a minor at the time, said in the episode when looking back on Peck's sentencing hearing. "I said I love them and I just said, how dare you? And I said, you will forever have the memory of sitting in this court room and defending this person. And I will forever have the memory of the person you're defending violating me."
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After catching wind of the Ned's cast members' livestream, Bell called out Werkheiser and company as "classless" in an update shared to Twitter.
"Ned’s Declassless…this is wild…laugh it up guys…laugh it up…”Give me your h*les?!!” Really?!" Bell wrote on Tuesday.
Bell was far from the only person to call out the jokes in question, as evidenced by scrolling through the comments on the Ned's podcast's IG and TikTok pages. In fact, this isn't the first headlines-generating controversy from the Ned's circle.
In a statement shared to social media on Monday, Amy Berg, whose first job in the industry was working as an assistant for Schneider, said she “wasn’t aware of any physically inappropriate behavior” during her tenure. However, she called Schneider "a fucking asshole" whose work behavior led to her developing “a significant heart arrhythmia.”
Schneider's team also released a statement on Monday, per Deadline. In it, a rep pointed to what they describe as a stringent approval process for Schneider's productions, meaning that any sequences or attire considered "inappropriate" would have been "flagged and blocked" along the way.
"In a career spanning 30-plus years, Dan worked with thousands of people, many of whom still tell him how much they enjoyed and appreciated working on his shows," the rep said, in part. "But he also knows some people did not have a positive experience, and he is truly sorry for that."
