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The shows these stars appeared on were sweet and innocent, but what happened behind-the- scenes and in real life wasn’t always so virtuous. From Amanda Bynes to Jamie Lynn Spears, these stars all experienced horror stories during their time on television or in the years that followed.
Gross! While filming a scene for Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101, circa 2004, Jamie Lynn Spears had goo repeatedly splattered on her face. The network’s former chief, Dan Schneider — whose actions are scrutinized in the Investigation Discovery docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, out March 17 — wasn’t satisfied with how it looked, claims Alexa Nikolas, who played Nicole Bristow on the series, so the director shot take after take.
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Jamie Lynn’s Sexualized Scene
The scene that Dan ended up going with, Alexa contends, was the most sexualized. “I think Jamie was 13,” she says, “and they’re squirting stuff on her face to make it look a certain way.” Dan has denied accusations that he fostered a toxic environment and behaved inappropriately during his 25-year tenure at the network.
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‘Boy Meets World’ Abuse Scandal
Brian Peck was “extremely charming” and so “personable,” Danielle Fishel explained on the February 19 episode of the podcast she hosts with former Boy Meets World costars Will Friedle and Rider Strong, that the ABC series stand-in actor easily ingratiated himself into their lives in the late 1990s.
But after Brian was convicted in 2004 of sexually abusing an unnamed Nickelodeon child actor, Will and Rider — who’d both hung out with him “all the time,” Rider said — began to realize the much older performer had been grooming them for years. “Getting taken in by somebody who’s a good actor and a manipulator… [being] on the abuser’s side, that’s the thing I haven’t been able to get over,” Will admitted.
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Amanda Got Close to Her Boss
Apparently, Amanda Bynes was struggling long before her mental health issues led a judge to place her under a conservatorship from 2013 to 2022. The retired actress — who had her breakout role on Nickelodeon’s All That in the 1990s before scoring her own eponymous show that ran from 1999 to 2002 — reportedly clashed with her parents, especially her strict father, as a teen.
She explored legally emancipating herself and allegedly even considered moving in with her controversy-plagued showrunner, Dan Schneider, and his wife, Lisa Lillien. “Amanda was spending a lot of time with us,” Lisa admits, though she insists Amanda “never left her [family’s] house.”
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‘Home Improvement’ Star Arrested for DUI
On February 17, Zachery Ty Bryan — a child star on the hit 1990s ABC sitcom Home Improvement who’s compared his comedown from teen fame to “a cow going to the slaughterhouse” — was arrested in La Quinta, California, on charges including felony DUI. (He’s yet to enter a plea.)
It’s just the latest in a string of troubling incidents for the actor turned producer. In 2023, Zachery was arrested for felony assault, robbery and harassment of a woman, resulting in a brief jail stint after he pleaded guilty; and in 2020, he was arrested for allegedly trying to strangle Johnnie Faye Cartwright, the mother of three of his seven kids. He pleaded guilty, and the incident led to probation and enrollment in a batterer intervention program.
