Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider is the person behind a number of the youngsters’s community’s most beloved children’ sitcoms of the 90s and 2000s, like “Drake & Josh,” “iCarly” and “Victorious.”
However these days, he is most likely higher referred to as the person behind a raft of horrifying allegations of inappropriate conduct towards his then-underage feminine stars. As a type of stars, Amanda Bynes has resurfaced within the information amid her latest struggles with psychological well being. So has an outdated principle which may be essentially the most damning allegation towards Schneider of all of them.
Followers assume Dan Schneider is the daddy of Jamie Lynn Spears’ first child Maddie.
The rumor goes approach again, all the way in which to when Jamie Lynn Spears, 31, introduced her being pregnant together with her first little one, Maddie Briann, 14, in 2007 on the age of simply 16.
Schneider created “Zoey 101” launching Jamie Lynn Spears’ profession to new heights however was canceled after her being pregnant was introduced.
The present, which premiered on Nickelodeon in 2005, made Jamie Lynn Spears, child sister of pop icon Britney Spears, a star in her personal proper. Spears’ teen being pregnant was a surprising announcement on the time — even her mom, Lynn Spears, expressed shock on the information in media feedback.
Spears has all the time maintained that her boyfriend on the time, Casey Aldridge, is Maddie’s father, however followers have lengthy suspected that was a cover-up of Schneider’s predatory conduct.
Some followers have prompt that Aldridge was paid off by the Spears household to say to be Maddie’s father, both to keep away from a sexual assault scandal, to keep off authorized motion from Schneider or Nickelodeon, or on the behest of Schneider himself.
Followers have additionally identified what they see as an uncanny resemblance between Maddie and the producer as proof that Dan Schneider is the daddy of Jamie Lynn Spears’ first child and that he groomed and assaulted Spears.
Rumors declare that the idea was a part of a wider cover-up of Schneider’s molestations and assaults of a number of Nickelodeon stars.
The rumor that Dan Schneider is the daddy of Jamie Lynn Spears’ first child first surfaced in a 2007 blind merchandise within the long-running Hollywood gossip weblog “Loopy Days and Nights,” which claimed Spears’ being pregnant had brought about Nickelodeon brass to “have a coronary heart assault as a result of they actually do not want any extra scandals.”
The blind merchandise went on to say that “one of many producers…is the one who knocked her up,” and that “new boyfriends are being lined up as we converse” to cowl up the scandal.
“Loopy Days and Nights” was such a reputable supply for supposedly inside data on Hollywood on the time that the weblog had a widely known superstar following, and lots of celebrities have been rumored to have secret burner accounts with which they commented on the weblog’s tales.
One such superstar was alleged to be the “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr., whom many consider commented on the Schneider-Spears blind merchandise on the time.
The account that was supposedly Downey Jr.’s referred to Schneider as a “monster” and claimed to know for a truth he fathered Spears’ little one and that Nickelodeon and dad or mum firm Viacom had paid for Schneider’s legal professionals to cowl up this and a number of other different scandals.
Dan Schneider has since been accused of predatory sexual conduct towards Nickelodeon stars like Jennette McCurdy, Amanda Bynes, and Alexa Nikolas.
Whereas Spears has stored quiet about Schneider besides to reward him, her former Nickelodeon colleagues haven’t been so magnanimous. Her “Zoey 101” costar Alexa Nikolas has accused Schneider of paying Nickelodeon actresses for images of their toes and watching her change in her dressing room when she was as younger as 12.
Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy has not been fairly as direct as Nikolas, however in an unedited model of her latest memoir “I am Glad My Mother Died,” McCurdy named a producer named “Dan” as the person who photographed her in a bikini and tried to get her intoxicated, amongst different accusations, whereas she labored on his reveals “iCarly” and “Sam & Cat.”
Many followers additionally consider sexual predation by Schneider towards Amanda Bynes, together with an incident through which he was filmed in a sizzling tub together with her, is what led to Bynes’ psychological breakdown within the 2010s and her subsequent years of psychological well being struggles.
Bynes’ most up-to-date wrestle got here in March 2023 when she known as 911 for assist with a psychotic episode.
For her half, Spears has refused to touch upon any of the allegations towards Schneider, together with in her 2022 memoir “Issues I Ought to Have Mentioned,” through which she praised him as “the driving power” who championed her casting on “Zoey 101.”
And whereas Schneider has largely disappeared from the limelight amid the allegation towards him, the present he created for Spears lives on.
It’s being rebooted, with Spears within the starring position, as “Zoey 102,” with manufacturing launching in Wilmington, North Carolina in January 2023. Schneider isn’t concerned within the reboot.
John Sundholm is a information and leisure author who covers popular culture, social justice and human curiosity matters.
