Lori Beth Denberg says Dan Schneider ‘took advantage of her’

Tactress Lori Beth Denberg, who starred in the hit Nickelodeon show All of this in the mid-to-late 1990s, accused Dan Schneider of showing her pornography when she was a teenager. In an interview with Business Insider Tuesday, Denberg said that in 1995, shortly after the first season of All of this finished, Schneider invited her to his office to discuss the fact that she had heard that a producer had spoken to her about her weight gain.

During this meeting, Denberg said, Schneider began showing his pornography clips. “I feel like it was the first time he attacked me,” she said.

She said Business Insider that during her four years on set between 1994 and 1998, Schneider, who worked with Nickelodeon on shows until 2018, “put her in countless uncomfortable situations.” The former executive producer “attacked her on set, showed her pornography on multiple occasions and once initiated phone sex,” the publication reported. Denberg said Schneider also played a video of a woman performing oral sex on a donkey as the “big finale.”

Schneider is the subject of Silence on set: the dark side of children’s TV documentary series that premiered on Max in March. He was Nickelodeon’s “golden boy,” finding success with several children’s programs, including Amanda’s show, Icarly, Drake and JoshIt is Zoey 101. The docu-series looked at years of multiple allegations that Schneider fostered a toxic work environment and placed children in positions compromising former cast and crew who worked on his shows. Denberg’s accusations are not the first time Schneider has shown pornography to a female employee; in the documentary, a writer about Amanda’s Show, Jenny Kilgen, said Schneider showed her pornography on his computer.

See more information: Dan Schneider Sues Quiet on Set Docuseries Producers for Defamation

In a statement emailed to TIME, Schneider said the claims are “extremely exaggerated and, in most cases, false.” He said he takes responsibility for not always making the right decisions when he was the head of these programs, saying, “there were times, especially in the early years of my career, when I made mistakes and demonstrated a lack of judgment as a leader.”

“If I did this towards Lori Beth, I sincerely apologize to her,” he said. “But I can’t apologize for things I didn’t do.”

Earlier this month, Schneider filed a defamation lawsuit against the Silence on set documentary producers. In his statement Tuesday, Schneider said he considers it “more than a coincidence” that the reporter Denberg spoke with is the same journalist who led a 2022 investigation in which former employees detailed Schneider’s request for on-set massages, among other allegations—and was one of the executive producers of Silence on set.

Denberg detailed different instances in which Schneider made her uncomfortable when she was young, Business Insider reported. She says their relationship became sexual in nature when she was 19, about two years after working at All of this. Business Insider reported that she slept at Schneider’s house more than once. “Although they were not sexually intimate during these sleepovers, Denberg said they gave each other massages and that Schneider often played pornography on his computer,” the publication wrote. One of Denberg’s high school friends corroborated this claim.

See more information: Dan Schneider responds to allegations of promoting a toxic work environment raised in Silence on set Doctor

Denberg called her relationship with Schneider a “weird, abusive friendship,” saying she was speaking out now because she wants Nickelodeon to take responsibility. “There is right and wrong,” Denberg said, “and there is true and false.”