Melissa Joan Hart believes Nickelodeon abuse stories, hasn’t heard any herself

On an episode of the Meghan McCain Has Entered The Chat podcast, former child star Melissa Joan Hart said she hadn’t yet watched Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV. She “[keeps] meaning to,” but by the time she gets to watching television at night it feels too late for the heavy stuff: “I’ll get worked up.” The Clarissa Explains It All star personally had positive experiences with Nickelodeon, but acknowledges that’s not the case for everyone.

“I don’t know other people’s experiences and I’m not negating anything anybody else says. I’ve never been told these people’s stories that are in the [documentary],” she said (via People). “And I have to say, I’ve never heard a story from a Nickelodeon star personally, nobody’s come to me and talked to me about any of these situations. I absolutely trust them, believe them, one hundred percent.”

Of course, Quiet On Set was focused on the Dan Schneider era of Nickelodeon, which came after Clarissa. She didn’t experience the tyranny of Schneider’s temper and the toxic workplace he fostered. Nor does it sound like she encountered the predators who lurked on the sets of All That and The Amanda Show. However, there are some child star experiences that are universal: “They did work the kids a lot harder than they probably legally should. We had a ton of fun, it was just long hours, that’s all—because I had to do school and the show,” Hart shared. She added, “[There were] long hours, lots of repeating the monologue over and over and over. [And] long dialogue scenes and then school and then SAT’s and college applications and one day to be social, one day off, and so that was just the hard part for me, was just my schedule.”

The long hours are something that the All That stars who participated in Quiet On Set highlighted as an abuse of power on their set, something echoed by the Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide cast in their reflection on the documentary. Though there are laws in place to protect children from doing excess labor, many of the actors said the rules were bent or broken in favor of continuing expensive shoots. And of course, most kids are eager to please their adult bosses and prove their worth, pushing themselves past their limits before they realize what their limits really are. Once the rules about working overtime are broken, it can be a doorway to other on-set abuses.

Luckily for Hart, who went on to star in Sabrina The Teenage Witch, she “was surrounded by an amazing crew, an incredible cast that took such good care of me. I mean, these people were protective of me” on Clarissa, she says. “And so I don’t know if it was the difference in Orlando or the time period, whoever these guys were, they weren’t around, but I have to say, not every egg in the Nickelodeon basket is rotten.”

Hart went on, “There were some people that really took care of me. To be honest, a few of them are still my very best friends. So from the producers down to, you know, the sound guys, all took care of me and… we were a wonderful family.”