‘Quiet On Set’: Chris Hansen Says He Heard Nickelodeon Abuse Rumors Years Ago

Chris Hansen, who hosted To Catch a Predator from 2004 to 2007, said he’d heard whispers years ago about the alleged exploitation and child sexual abuse happening behind the scenes at Nickelodeon.

Hansen’s comments come amid the Investigation Discovery docuseries Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which documents children’s television shows from the late 1990s and early 2000s, with former child stars speaking out about their alleged experiences of abuse, sexism, and racism.

In the doc, former child actors have made claims of sexual abuse against assistant Jason Handy, dialogue coach Brian Peck, and studio freelancer Ezel Channel, as well as abusive, toxic, and misogynistic behavior of producer Dan Schneider.

Speaking to Newsweek, Hansen recalled a 2006 episode of To Catch a Predator, the series which followed adult men arriving at a sting house to have sex with a minor and typically being arrested as a result. This particular episode featured a Nickelodeon employee.

“This particular sting was back in 2006, I believe, when the videotape editor Justin Smith from Nickelodeon showed up, and you know, a lot of us in the investigative reporting world had been hearing about Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider for years now,” Hansen said.

At the time, Smith was a 27-year-old freelance postproduction editor for Nickelodeon, who was suspected of grooming what he thought was a 13-year-old girl via online chatrooms.

“Now [Schneider] is apologizing, and I think it’s causing—and should cause—a reexamination of, you know, how adults act around children,” Hansen continued.

“You have these situations where you’ve got a vulnerable set of people who are, in some cases, under supervised and are having close relationships with adults. There needs to be rules,” he added.

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The former Dateline NBC correspondent went on to say, “You would think that most of this would be common sense, but when there’s no rules there, nobody overseeing this or monitoring it, there’s obviously the potential for inappropriate behavior and abuse.”

“I think we see that on the internet, which is so ubiquitous and so ungovernable in so many ways—that there’s opportunity,” he explained. “And if you allow too much ungoverned opportunity, you’re going to see the potential for exploitation. I think that’s what we see in the Nickelodeon situation.”

To Catch a Predator ended in 2007, but Hansen has continued his mission to protect children. His series, Takedown With Chris Hansen, launched on the streaming service TruBlu in 2022, where he continues to investigate and work with law enforcement to catch predators.

Quiet on Set: Breaking the Silence, April 7, 8/7c, ID