Emma Roberts expressed shock and horror after watching the docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which unveiled claims of child abuse from former Nickelodeon child stars.
During a recent interview with Variety, the former child star opened up about her time working on Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous, which aired from 2004 to 2007.
“I was completely horrified and shocked because that was not my experience,” Roberts, 33, told the publication. “It made me really, really, really sad that that was happening to people that I literally saw often and had no idea.”
Roberts, who starred in Unfabulous from age 13, shared her positive experiences with the show.
“The showrunner we had was this amazing woman named Sue Rose. And I didn’t realise at the time, but a female showrunner back then was not very common,” she recounted. “But that was my intro into working on a TV show.”
Roberts further revealed that her mother would accompany her to the sets and stay by her side 24/7.
“I would be like, ‘You don’t have to be here all the time,’ and she was like, ‘I do, actually,'” she recalled
Watching her peers speak about their negative experiences as child actors deeply affected Roberts.
“It makes me really sad. 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,” she expressed.