Allie DiMeco, known for playing Rosalina on the 2000s Nickelodeon show “The Naked Brothers Band” alongside Alex and Nat Wolff, talked about feeling pressured to kiss a 30-year-old man when she was much younger.
DiMeco decided to speak out last week after watching “Quiet on Set.” The Investigation Discovery docuseries has sparked a lot of discussion about how Nickelodeon looked after its child stars—like Amanda Bynes, Drake Bell, and others.
“It honestly gives me PTSD. I’m watching this ‘Quiet on Set’ documentary. It’s talking about how crucial it is to create an environment where kids feel comfortable to say ‘No’ or ‘I don’t feel comfortable with this’ when they are cast in a kid's role,” she said in a TikTok video shared on Friday. “Then I’m like, ‘Yeah, maybe they do express that though.’ It’s also more important to create an environment that listens to the kids and actually does not make them do things when they don’t want to do them.”
“They made me kiss this 30-plus-year-old man when I was like, what 14, 15? I told them many times I didn’t want to do it,” DiMeco continued. “My mom was very against it, and they made me feel like I was going to lose my job and be fired if I didn’t do it.”
DiMeco’s character had a scene involving cheating on the show (which some underage viewers thought was a real-life documentary), which led to fans of the show turning against the actress.
“It was a scripted show, and many kids thought that it was a real-life documentary, and people, especially girls, wanted to fight me in real life,” the actress mentioned. “I didn’t have fans because they thought it was real life.”
The former child star then played a clip of her interacting with the older actor at the time, calling him a “greasy-ass, dusty-ass dwarf.”
“I’m sorry to this man, but I did not want to keep him,” she said over the scene. “Also guys. I’m 4’11”. He’s a 30-year-old man.”
DiMeco also expressed feeling constantly isolated due to the show's “nepotism” and described it as the “most healthy set out of all the Nickelodeon shows”—though it did have “a lot of toxic and not-so-healthy aspects.” The series wasn't, as DiMeco said, “a DanWarp, Dan Schneider pedophile show,” but she emphasized that they went through their own trauma.
“That’s my ‘Quiet on Set’ story, apart from the taking my first kiss away from me,” DiMeco concluded.
“The Naked Brothers Band” aired for three seasons from 2007-09 on Nickelodeon.
