The Dark Side of VICTORIOUS: Nickelodeon's WORST kept Secret | Deep Dive

you think [Music] [Applause] the Victorious kids get drunk together all the time the iCarly kids are so wholesome [Music] thank you from the early 90s all the way through the 2010s producer Creator and Visionary Dan Schneider absolutely dominated the Children's Network Nickelodeon live action shows like all that The Amanda Show Zoe 101 Drke and Josh iCarly and Sam and Cat and Victorious would be broadcast into nearly every home in America thus the children who starred in these shows often blew up into ginormous stars in their own right and today's subject is no exception there have been many videos done on Dan Schneider the Creator including his obsession with children's feeds and overall creepy Antics have you ever tried to get your whole big toe in your mouth how Jeanette McCurdy from his show iCarly even called him out in her book he reaches out and places his hand on my knee I get goosebumps you're cold he says concern I don't think that's why I got the Goosebumps but I agree it's always best to agree with the Creator he Pats my shoulders and then the pad turns into a massage I want to say something to tell him to stop but I'm so scared of offending him come on take a sip no thanks come on I've never had alcohol before and I'm only 18. couldn't I get in trouble the Victorious kids get drunk together all the time the iCarly kids are so wholesome we need to give you guys a little Edge however today's subject is entirely different as she is remains relatively silent and she even got married it's Dan Schneider and DrLuke's right hand man and yes she met this adult man turned husband when she was barely 16 years old on the set of the hit television show Victorious that's right today I'm going to be talking about Elizabeth Gillies now y'all know we are always super busy making content for all of our channels but this year I want to spend my summer going on adventures that's why I love today's sponsor factor factor delivers fresh never frozen meals right to your doorstep you can actually skip the trip to the grocery store and Skip chopping prepping and cleaning up too factors fresh delicious meals are ready in literally two minutes all you have to do is heat and enjoy then go back outside to soak up all that Sun by the pool there are 34 Chef prepared dietitian approved weekly meal options for you to choose from and you will never get bored with all the options we love factors cold pressed juices and smoothies that are so refreshing when it's hot out if you're looking for calorie conscious meals ahead of the busy season try out factors delicious dietitian approved calorie smart meals that are only around 550 calories per serving Factor has really helped free up some time in our day which means more time at the beach so head to factor75. com or click the link in the description box and use code Deep dive 50 to get 50 off your first Factor box if you want to treat yourself to meals like Green Goddess chicken and bruschetta shrimp risotto don't forget to click the link in the description box or go to factor75.

com and use code Deep dive 50 for 50 off your first Factor box now let's get back into Liz Gilly's career and just how she went from the big stage to the small screen first time you realized you wanted to be a performer I remember trying to I anytime there was an open call of any kind no matter how fake it sounded like if I heard it on the radio on Z100 or whatever I would make my mom take me I just I was kind of my own stage mom and my mom was like my driver facilitating my stage mom energy like I was just it was kind of weird but I was determined to make something of myself and here we are we're somewhere now from the beginning Liz Gillies was pretty much destined for greatness as she had started auditioning for various television shows by the time she turned 12 years old so she may have auditioned for her shows and been in various commercials but the year Liz turned 15 is when the most notable event in her early career occurs when she was cast in the musical 13. Lucy and Kendra are in ISO please it goes back to the music it's just stuff that's so great for our kind of voices and it's so much fun just saying that we just all eat it up and we have so much fun when she cries and she tries really good work everybody they would pick up things that we said in normal life and they'd listen then we'd get the script the next day and be like Oh I said that yesterday they really got into who we were as people and then put it into our characters this cast was chocked full of some of the most talented teenagers in Show Business and even had a Tony Award winner writing and directing the entire production this is where things get interesting the cast included Graham Phillips Caitlyn Graham Aaron Simon gross Elizabeth Gillies and a young 15 year old Ariana Grande and now today I record original cast out both had their first Big Break together in this musical and both of them quickly showed an abnormal amount of talent for their age ants were absolute Powerhouse singers I won't say a word [Music] [Applause] so by 15 Liz was already on Broadway working harder than she ever had before and that lasted until the beginning of 2009 when the show 13 had its final production after this time all of the television appearances Liz had been filming for the past year during the musical were Aaron and she caught the attention of notorious former Nickelodeon Snyder's Bakery producer and Creator Dan Schneider now Dan had seen the musical 13. I don't know why uh obviously oh my God I'm not gonna go there and he invited Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies to go audition for a brand new show titled Victorious [Laughter] sorry Jade the next letter was working with Dan Schneider is absolutely amazing when I first got the call he actually called my house I was driving home with my mom and my grandma we were out to dinner and we were driving back to my grandma's house and then all of a sudden we saw that we got a coffee and we like we like skidded off the road and we like you know we turned the car off and then you know he said Elizabeth would you like to be in a TV show and I was like yeah that'd be great and he said would you like to play Jade and I was like oh I'd love that so it was it was just absolutely amazing he's such a sweet sweet man and his mind is so so hysterical and so creative you never know what he's going to come up with and it's just so much fun to act out all his hysterical lines and the scenarios and I'm just I'm very blessed to be able to do that so Victorious see back in 2008 Jamie Lynn Spears was pregnant and the shows that we went on one was ending Brittany Spears is going to be an act for teen sister Jamie Lynn is pregnant how mad must Nickelodeon be right now at 16 I was pregnant and I was going to become a mother the child star who got pregnant it's Nickelodeon they're going to get rid of her I mean a lot of horrible nasty things were said the 16 year old girl got pregnant and her life is over talk to me in six months and see if she has a career well breakouts are an activist Alexa Nichols left the show after a very fiery confrontation with none other than Britney Spears it's Britney and then Kristen Herrera had to leave after the first season reportedly for forgetting her lines and quote personal issues who knows what that means in Schneider's Bakery oh my goodness so after the first season they needed to add a new actress to the mix and who better than Disney star at the time Victor Victoria Justice so Victoria Justice was sniped from Disney to Star and Zoe 101 then subsequently got her very own spin-off titled Victorious now this was meant to be Victoria Justice's huge break and it somewhat was however the rest of the cast of Victorious would be phenomenal like unheard of for a kid's TV show one thing you don't know about Ariana Grande is that she literally sings Everything because she sings everything and it's a good thing she's a beautiful voice but it's awesome she sings absolutely everything she never stops that's so true Liz you sing a lot too like especially during the whole thing you have Leon Thomas III who is on Broadway as well playing Andre you have comedic genius Matthew Bennett playing Robbie and girl everyone loves him you have Avon Jogia playing back you have Daniela Monet playing Trina you have Ariana Grande in the mix as a main character and you have Elizabeth Gillies as well a Powerhouse actress and singer and they were all very Dynamic so even though it was Victoria Justice's show it would prove to be very hard to be the star of it and there would even be some alleged sabotage but we'll get to that in a second Liz recalled the first time she truly felt Fame was in the pre-production for victorious when they were filming for the theme song she said our stages were right in the center of Hollywood and we were all just kind of dancing and we could see the Hollywood sign and I just had this moment where I was like oh my gosh I'm in Hollywood and I'm on a TV show and I was with Ari and we had just come from Broadway and we were like look at us we've made it so it was a special a special first moment so as they began filming the show with Dan Schneider there were a number of things right off the bat that made this show way different than some of the other live-action Nickelodeon shows for star murders there was a lot more sexual innuendo especially for a children's show Victorious would push the boundaries of children's television pretty much as far as they would go but on the flip side nearly every episode would have an original song by the cast of Victorious this is where the show gets even more convoluted as the songs would be produced and written by a small team consisting of 36 year old Michael Corcoran and music Visionary and alleged Predator DrLuke together they would craft some of the best songs children's television had ever had the pleasure of listening to cause this ain't going nowhere [Music] but here in my way I wanna let you know that it's all okay and Liz's first song would be a duet with none other than Ariana Grande in a song called Give It Up [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Give It Up now this song was the literal soundtrack to my childhood y'all like me and my sister recreated it so many times like this song is just a hit and the writer was none other than Michael Corcoran a 36 year old songwriter who while in the set of Victorious allegedly groomed and manipulated a young Liz Gillies whom he met at just 16 years old now at the time this could never get out the story of a young 16 year old meeting a 36 year old alleged predator on set who is over double her age and then officially dating him the second she turned 18 would be a ginormous scandal at Nickelodeon so for years a young Liz would hide her ancient boyfriends in the shadows so now Liz is dating Michael Corcoran the musical writer slash producer on Victorious did this give her special treatment well the cast of Victorious was subject to a lot and reportedly there was some really shady that went down on that set and it's obvious Liz is drinking the coffee goodbye tinted water is so good tinted water you've just revealed a secret about Victorious for this section I'm actually going to be getting into some blind items that seemingly line up perfectly with the story of the production of Victorious now keep in mind these are blind items so they might not be true however they have been historically true and they are from crazy days and nights seemingly credible source for blind items that have turned out to be true historically and these ones are just too disturbing to ignore according to multiple sources the Victorious cast was allegedly very into substance use in 2014 an entertainment lawyer spilled on the notorious Victorious set and just how Wild the underage cast got the blind item from the lawyers stating most of the time when a show is at its peak is not when it's canceled this show was at its peak and viewership and it could have run for many more years the cast all wanted it to run for more years but the network pulled the plug they were scared of the show there were too many instances where the network had to put out a fire that would have ruined the image of the show there were too many jerks on set and too much and the network didn't want to Scandal they just wanted the show to stop filming and to get rid of it as fast as possible of course in their haste they left behind two cast members who were going to turn out just as bad while the show was being filmed guest stars would show up high or know they could get great streaks on set even though the cast was so young there are episodes that cast members don't even remember shooting because they were so wasted and this x was everywhere and the problem for the network was the age of the cast some were above 18 and some were below 18.

and parents were always calling and screaming and Executives feared every day that there would be some type of statutory claim or some lawsuit filed by a parent or extra on the show every day the show aired the network felt like they were rolling dice you had to knock before opening a closed door because inevitably someone would be doing jerks or having sex no wonder the cast kept wanting to shoot the show one of the bigger users and sexually active cast members was given her own show or close to her own show she had producers fooled into thinking she was an innocent cast member many thinking this is Ariana Grande now if that wasn't shocking enough Jeanette McCurdy corroborates this message in her book presumably referring to Dan Schneider as the Creator she details the tragic story of him not only photographing her in a bikini but also pushing alcohol on her when she was not of age to drink when she declined the drink he used the excuse that all the kids on his other show Victorious all drink and they were fun and that iCarly needed to loosen up and not be so uptight so we have a grown man trying to convince a young 18 year old girl to drink because the Victorious cast does it well let's take a look at the Victorious cast a lot of them don't remember what took place on set evang jokia who plays Liz's love interests often appears Dazed and Confused as he was often recovering from a hangover so substance abuse was allegedly rampant on the set of Victorious but unfortunately so is the sexualization of the Victorious cast I mean let's just skip past all the soft feet episode entire early I mean this episode had men with allegations crawling all over it but this is where we get to in my opinion the darkest part of the Victorious story in 2017 a blind item would be uploaded from a friend of a star of a Nickelodeon show so that's automatically one of Dan Snyder's live action shows because it's someone who is starring in the show and the show is also after their name and people deduced that it wasn't iCarly because Miranda Cosgrove's name is not Carly however Victoria Justice's name is Victoria so it's automatically one of Dan Schneider's live-action shows but as the details are revealed the publication that released this blind item was able to identify it was allegedly about Victoria Justice Ariana Grande Liz Gillies and Miranda Cosgrove so here we go buckle up because this gets disgusting this is what the friend is saying about their meeting allegedly with Victoria a mutual friend said we should meet to clear the air an actress wanted to tell her side of the stories I had been hearing about her from others she says she is not a pain to work with and that for the past year she is purposefully not asked for anything on set from anyone yet the stories continue she knows why AI she blames it on a producer a producer who has been featured on this site from almost the very beginning our actress says that even though she was the star of the show it was a name only when she landed the part the producer never mentioned anything about sleeping with her because he had a handful of other actresses on other shows who were keeping him busy all but one of them were underage she suspected that because she was legal for almost the entire run of the show that he was just not that into her at some point he did allegedly try and sleep with her and she turned him down that rejection costs her a bunch of scene reductions on Victorious the next time she turned him down her personal appearance offers began to dry up and she was even in fewer scenes which y'all this does line up with Victorious the final two seasons of Victoria's Victoria Justice is barely in and Kat and Jade really take the center stage of the whole show anyway continuing on with this blind item meanwhile this producer found someone else to sleep with and who is also legal but love to role play super young and the publication has identified this allegedly as Ariana Grande she was getting the good lines and scenes she was being offered crossover opportunities and new shows were being developed for her the producer also stated pitting the cast against our actress if you want your career to succeed you took the side of the producer if you wanted it to fail you took her side the producer started spreading lies about our actress he did so regularly when the show finally ended there was no one out there who was willing to hire her because of all the stories the producer had been spreading so when she did get work and asked for anything or was a few minutes late from lunch or whatever the stories would start again and getting work even harder the only work she can really get at this point are product endorsement deals and doing work for companies no one wants to hire her for acting no one wants her for pretty much anything she says that even though her career has gone into the tank because she would sleep with the producer she doesn't regret her decision she points to another actress of a show he produced presumably iCarly the actress slept with the producer and his friends and it didn't help her career at all and y'all that just makes me think of Miranda Cosgrove's DrLuke album because she has like a whole album that has several songs produced by him and he's clearly a friend of Dan she is hoping that people will start to pressure the producer to let up on the comments and that other producers will give her a chance she just wants to work end quote sadly Victoria Justice's career has been at a standstill since Victorious and if this blind item is one of the many blind items that is true that would mean Ariana Grande was only 16. and Dan Schneider would have been a sickening 47 years old see while Victoria Justice was struggling to even get in scenes on her own show Ariana and Liz were thriving Liz was friendly with Michael Corcoran which caused her to be able to get in way more songs and thus more scenes Jade became a one of the most unforgettable characters of all time and on the flip side Ariana Grande always had a lot of favor with Dan Schneider so she and Liz were filling up most of the screen time for the show Victorious in its final two seasons well as I'm sure you all know the story goes Ariana's music career began popping off inside and outside the show Ariana and Liz's collab actually charted on the Billboard charts and this was the first time ever in Nickelodeon saw success like this there was a huge craze around the character Cat Valentine and of course Jade West so what happened to Victorious it was such a huge hit why did the show continue to go on well there are several theories the most popular one was pushed right off the bat the story went that Nickelodeon was looking to make more money off of live tours and so they proposed a Victorious cast tour like they'd done in the past but Victoria allegedly wanted to go on a solo tour by herself however Victoria Justice has since spoken out multiple times over the course of her career and denied this claim entirely marking it as a complete false claim which makes my mind go back to that first find item we read about the substances and intercourse on set if it wasn't Victoria it could have been that liability and it's honestly chilling to hear Dan describe it to Jeanette in her book like the way that the depraved actions on the Victorious set were more quote fun to Dan that's likely the reason the show was allegedly shut down so the show has ended without any real ending the third season has its boiling point behind the scenes and Nickelodeon has allegedly had enough however remember how there were allegedly spin-off projects in the works while the Victorious cancellation was happening well Sam and Cat would debut to millions of viewers and that's a story for another day but what happens with Liz's character Jade well she was pretty much abandoned Liz Gillies wouldn't take part in the spin-off well hopefully she would be taking a similar route to her child friends Ariana and boyfriend right it would make sense for her to do an album or singles and Venture into the world of music as her voice is the voice of an Angel can wait for the birds to fly by and most if not all of the Victorious songs that hit the charts come from Elizabeth and Ariana especially with Sam and Cat ending and yours truly by Ariana Grande going Platinum people just kind of assumed Liz would eventually release an album and she did actually have a record deal with Sony and recorded 50 songs but she thought they were identity lists and didn't have any direction so the project was scrapped I must have recorded 50 songs I was with you know with Sony with back in the day oh you know I had a record deal and I would but I didn't know what I wanted to do specifically I just was like trying on many different hats so I had like country demos I had like you know hip-hop dinos I had stuff that sound like Natasha benningfield and then I mean every is a bizarre and I sounded fine in all of them because I'm a singer so it's really good no it's not as horrible like I wish I could have just rolled through like Jason Mrz and like this is what it is this is the sound coming out of my mouth and they're like done you're you're done you know what I mean when some like Regina Spektor right like she has this way about her and she I am more like a I'm like a con artist so I like I can cover songs till I'm blue in the face but finding exactly what that's why it's taken so long because it's about identity it's about identity I know who I am I'm just saying I like so many different types of music it's going to take a minute for me but like it's gonna take 10 years it's going to take a while for me to find out exactly what I want my album to sound like do you turn to writing in any setting like writing your own records do you write I do I do I read all the time I read all the time that's cool yeah I mean yeah I write all the time I send little memos to my boyfriend I'm like what do you think and he's like uh she told Zach saying in an exclusive interview that she's like a con artist saying I can cover songs till I'm blue in the face but that's why it takes so long so Liz is clearly a perfectionist but she's also had trouble settling on the alter ego she wants her music to be portrayed under Liz talked about how inherently to be famous you have to be a sex symbol and how that has turned her off from doing it entirely now Nickelodeon much like Disney has attempted to make pop stars in the past they have only truly succeeded once with Ariana Grande but Nickelodeon has collaborated with DrLuke time and time again to transform their young teen actors into huge pop stars and it sounds like Liz Gillies was no different she's also said it's very natural for her to do rock music and then hinted at an album on social media so she said we will get music from her before she dies however Liz would shy away from music altogether Adventure into the world of acting obviously with a successful show like Victorious ending so publicly and abruptly Liz was swarmed with offers to be in multiple sitcoms and drama shows she refers to as Middle Ground shows Liz said she always knew this was coming even during her days on Nickelodeon she was never good at being a spokesperson for a children's Network because she knew she'd be doing very serious acting in the very near future even on the show Victorious Jade is an icon to our generation because she was real jade wasn't just a fake cookie cutter Disney knockoff character with a different haircut rather than the Mean Girl each Victorious character had depth and Jade was deeply Disturbed had real issues that some may argue you shouldn't have been in a children's program at all however while I don't know or co-sign every single joke as it was a Dan Schneider show I did actually grow up watching Victorious and it started when I was like nine years old and I'm in my early 20s now and ivory watched a lot of that show and Jade was an excellent role model like while she had issues everyone does and she was actually really relatable to me specifically because like I was going through a really hard time when I was 14 oh my God y'all and I feel like having the character of Jade seeped through the children's net of programming I was allowed to watch while I was in a very restrictive cult was pretty vital to who I am today so like I have to give it to that however she was a strong woman who never ever backed down even in her toxic relationship while she had her faults and was a menace at times Liz Gillies gave her character so much depth and really showcased just how Dynamic of an actress she truly was even at the young age of 16 but Elizabeth Gilley's breakout was just getting started while she would tease a musical debut on the Christmas kisses album with Ariana Grande she never did Venture into music which to me is shocking considering her current husband and her direct connections to DrLuke however she would plunge head first into the world of acting so you're on a very successful show as a kid and that's not always guaranteed success as an adult but is it like a relief now knowing you are on this successful show few seasons in yeah I mean we've talked about this before it's funny because I left you years later but then I went to effects that never happened in the in like if you like talk no one knows that that happened it just kind of slid on the radar so it kind of looks like I went from a kid show to sort of a young adult show which is totally fine I proud of my work and I I do feel like I've left that bubble now that that Nick kid really hard to get out of bubble um and so yeah I'm proud of myself I think only up from here I won't really allow myself to fail if you see me failing miserably call me up and say Liz it won't happen you'd be like you know what Dan's gonna write you an interview and we're gonna shoot it at my house in New Jersey and we're just gonna like get you on a different path where you play like you know like the shimmering I don't know something shivering now this was another huge breakout moment for Liz kind of like Victorious but it was also a huge breakout moment for her relationship we're casting in New York but I'm I live in LA and so I had to do an audition tape I didn't hear anything for a while and then um they called me when my family was in town visiting my boyfriend for the first time and I I moved in my boyfriend after two weeks of dating him good idea so yeah that's my dad it's so it always works out when you do that we're still together so it's good but anyway uh whoa okay so things started moving very very quickly from the time she turned to 18.