Zoey 101's Matthew Underwood Reveals He Was Groomed, Molested, And Sexually Harassed As A Minor

Zoey 101's Matthew Underwood – known for his role as Logan Reese on the Nickelodeon series – has broken his silence following the release of Quiet on Set.

From Drake Bell's sexual abuse to Amanda Bynes' alleged secret X account and Dan Schneider's inappropriate scenes, the docuseries revealed the dark side of Nickelodeon shows.

According to Underwood, he was groomed and molested by his best friend's stepfather when he was only 12. He was sexually harassed and assaulted by his former agent at the age of 19. He does not name the perpetrator, who is still active in the industry.

The actor broke his silence after being pressured to speak up.

"I know many folks want me to respond to the quiet on set documentary," he wrote on Instagram. "I'm going to share something with you that I never thought I'd have to talk about publicly, as it's honestly none of your business anyway."

He continued, "When I was 12 years old, I was groomed and molested by my best friends' stepfather. I lost the best friends I'd ever had because I couldn't spend any time with them without feeling the personal disgust and betrayal brought on by a man I trusted as a father to me. When I was 19, I was sexually harassed and then assaulted by my agent at the time, who had spent a decent amount of time building trust with me as a friend and mentor. Again, my trust was betrayed and my self image crushed. I reported him to the agency and he has since been fired - although he is still active in the industry. This experience provoked my move away from LA and ended my pursuit of acting."

Social media users took Underwood's previous silence too far, threatening the former child actor and making assumptions about him all because he wanted privacy. He addressed this in his caption, writing, "We all want to live in a better world. That requires all of us to treat each other with empathy and not make assumptions about people’s personal experiences. We’re all feeling pain right now, and I can understand if you are angry, but harassing people who maintain their privacy and wishing death upon their families is no way to make this world better and safer for all of us."

To add further clarification (because people really cannot stop making baseless assumptions), Underwood stated that his current agents were innocent. "To ensure there is no confusion, I want to make it clear that my current agents Lauren Green and Sam Hampton of Modern Artists Entertainment are incredible humans who are sincere, genuine, and smart professionals in this industry," he explained. "They have always listened to my concerns and watched out for my well being. I want to thank Lauren Green for literally having my back since I was 8 years old. The only period of my life that I wasn’t represented by her, was the year and a half I had this shitty experience with this other agent. If it wasn’t for Lauren and Sam, I would never have been on a screen again."

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