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“Zoey 101” star Alexa Nikolas protests against Nickelodeon’s “unsafe” working environment
Actress Alexa Nikolas, best known for her role in Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101,” staged a protest on Thursday outside the company’s Burbank, California headquarters.
The 30-year-old, who appeared on the show alongside Jamie Lynn Spears, said she “felt unsafe” during her career on the show and detailed the alleged abuses she encountered at the hands of Nickelodeon bosses.
The network was slapped with serious allegations by former “iCarly” star Jennette McCurdy, who recently published a bombing memoir titled “I’m glad my mom died” about the alleged abuse she faced.
McCurdy claims she was forced to drink alcohol at the age of 18, and says she received unsolicited messages from her supervisor at the company. She also claimed that she was offered quiet money.
Pouring fuel on the fire, Nikolas said the net had done nothing to protect its talent and said: TMZ her experience there was “traumatic.”
The actress is now campaigning for the network to dismiss NDAs because she claimed they were harmful to child stars.
During the protest, Nikolas – who leads the Eat Predators organization, which supports survivors of sexual abuse – argued that the work environment is not “dangerous”.
“Personally, I didn’t feel protected at Nickelodeon as a child.” she said on Instagram live. “I demand that Nickelodeon start protecting children, not predators.”
The actress allegedly called in “iCarly” creator Dan Schneider, who also made “Zoey 101”.
She called him “the creator of childhood trauma”.
“I didn’t feel safe around Dan Schneider when I was working at Nickelodeon,” she said in the video.
About 20 protesters showed up with posters and signs that read “Sickelodeon” and “Predators.”
Others displayed photos of several Nickelodeon superiors, including Schneider and other network managers.
The former child star was attacked during a protest by Ezel Channel, John Kricfalusi and Jason Michael Handy, all of whom previously worked for the network and have since been accused of sexual misconduct, and Channel and Handy have been convicted of sex crimes.
Channel, a registered sex offender, was found guilty by a jury in 2009 for the wrongdoing and for the number of crimes involved in attempting to show pornographic material to a 14-year-old boy.
He was sentenced to six months in a Los Angeles County Jail and also sentenced to 16 months in a state prison for pornography.
However, the conviction was later rejected on appeal for lack of evidence that the video he was showing to the minor was pornographic in nature.
In 2004, Handy was sentenced to 6 years in prison after failing to oppose two counts of the crime, one of the sexual abuse of a child and one of the dissemination of sexually explicit material by email.
He also did not raise an objection to the accusation of a child sexual abuse offense.
He was released from prison in 2009 and was forced to register as a sex offender in North Carolina.
Nikolas also called on former Nickelodeon executives Sharon Lieblein and Cyma Zarghami, and Fred Savage, who served as director on Zoey 101.
In March, Savage was fired from ABC’s reboot of Wonderful Years after investigating allegations of misconduct.
Apparently, Savage was misbehaving and had verbal outbursts throughout the production.
“What we see here is a group of Nickelodeon” professional executives “not protecting the kids on set, Nikolas said in the film. “The kids on Nickelodeon weren’t safe, at least when I was on it.”
The Post asked Nikolas and Nickelodeon for comments.