Former child star Raquel Lee Bolleau, who starred on The Amanda Show, is the latest child star to allege abuse against Nickelodeon. Bolleau told her story when she sat down for an interview on the newest episode of Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, the show that is giving several child stars a platform to open up about similar allegations. As she reflected on her experience on The Amanda Show, Bolleau specifically focused on a skit they called “The Literals.”
The skit involved Amanda Bynes spitting her drink on Bolleau. According to Bolleau, Bynes repeatedly spit in her face while filming the skit, even when nobody told her to do so.
“Everybody thought it was so funny. Everybody’s laughing, but I did not find it funny,” Bolleau said on Quiet on Set, Decider reported. “The third time, I was infuriated.”
Bolleau, who now voices Nubia Gross on The Proud Family reboot added that the director tried to calm her down.
“I was so mad that the director hurried and put me on the side of the set and was like, ‘Listen, Raquel. Breathe in. Breathe out. She’s the star of the show.'”
In a lengthy Instagram statement, Bolleau elaborated on the pain she felt at the time and the importance of speaking up now.
“I’ve been in deep pain the past few days watching the documentary ‘Quiet on Set,'” she wrote. “To know that I am not alone in some of the things I experienced as a child actor, but to also hear the types of environments I was in as a kid without even knowing, just sickens my stomach. I know that everything happens for a reason and we all deserve to heal from our trauma, but this is so hard to take in.”
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As Blavity reported, Quiet on Set features several stars who opened up about their troubling experience on Nickelodeon shows like All That and The Amanda Show.
“Over the course of the past five or six years, there’s been a lot of things happening via racial equity and inclusion in Hollywood and there are stories that haven’t been told and stories that have been told,” Bryan Hearne, the former All That cast member who is featured in the series, told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “Once we got together as family and friends, we kind of decided when we get the platform we should start really talking about what we went through as child stars.”