“I remember me and Dan had a big argument on set,” he said. “He was like, ‘Let’s go over here to this room right here, in this closet.’ He closed the door and he just took off, you know, just yelling all this wild stuff… Being an adult at this point, I had a decision to make, you know what I mean? I was just like, ‘Okay, either we are going to fight or either I’m going to leave. And so that’s what I did. I left the situation.”
While neither Mitchell nor his Kenan & Kel co-star, Kenan Thompson, participated in the Quiet On Set documentary that brought allegations of Schneider’s abuse to the forefront, Thompson has commented on it on multiple occasions. In a March interview, the Saturday Night Live star said, “It’s tough for me because I can’t really speak on things that I never witnessed… all these things happened after I left, basically. Dan wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that.”
“My heart goes out to anybody that’s been victimized, or their families. I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out and it’s putting things on display, stories that need to be told for accountability’s sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my co-stars and stuff like that,” Thompson continued at the time, before retracting some of his statement in a later Variety interview: “I feel so guilty saying [I have fond memories of Nickelodeon]. All those things started happening after our tenure, because, I guess, no one would even dare. It wasn’t that kind of environment.”
Earlier this week, Victorious star Ariana Grande also weighed in on her personal history with the network, saying she was still “reprocessing” the whole thing. “I think the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting, and I think there should be therapists,” she said. “If anyone wants to do this, or music, or anything at this level of exposure, there should be in the contract something about therapy is mandatory twice a week or thrice a week, or something like that.”
