Former Nickelodeon Star Emma Roberts Was ‘Horrified And Shocked’ By Quiet On Set Bombshells: It ‘Kept Me Up At Night’

Emma Roberts finally addressed the disturbing allegations from the Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV documentary.

For those who don’t know, the actress starred as Addie Singer on Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous, starting when she was only 13 years old. The show lasted for three seasons before it ended in 2007. Fortunately for Emma, she did not deal with the same on-set mistreatment and inappropriate behavior from writer and producer Dan Schneider as her fellow child stars did during her time on the sitcom. Drake Bell also revealed he was the unnamed victim sexually assaulted by former dialogue coach Brian Peck in the doc. And upon learning what they faced while at the network, the American Horror Story star, like all of us, was “horrified and shocked.” She told Variety in an interview published on Friday:

“I watched [“Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV”], and I was completely horrified and shocked because that was not my experience. It made me really, really, really sad that that was happening to people that I literally saw often and had no idea.”

Oof. A big reason why Emma didn’t have the same experience as her peers? Schneider was not involved in the project whatsoever for starters. Instead, she had an “amazing” female showrunner on set. The Scream Queens alum said:

“For me, my show, ‘Unfabulous,’ the showrunner we had was this amazing woman named Sue Rose. And I didn’t realize at the time, but a female showrunner back then was not very common. But that was my intro into working on a TV show.”

Her mom, Kelly Cunningham, also would not leave Emma alone on set, not even for a second. The Aquamarine star recalled:

“Also, my mom was with me 24/7, and even I would be like, ‘You don’t have to be here all the time,’ she was like, ‘I do actually. I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re not going to a fitting by yourself when you’re 13 years old.’”

Ultimately, she feels more kids “need to be protected” like she was. Emma said:

“It makes me really sad, and I just feel like children need to be protected on sets, as do adults, and I feel like we’re working towards a better work environment in that sense. But yeah, that documentary really kept me up at night.”

We can imagine a lot of people — even other Nickelodeon alums — also felt the same way when the doc came out. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image via Nickelodeon/LiveKellyandMark/YouTube]