Lori Beth Denberg, known for her role on Nickelodeon’s All That, has come forward to share her experiences with disgraced former executive Dan Schneider, who allegedly initiated phone sex with Denberg and showed her porn.
Denberg spoke with Business Insider and explained, in detail, what allegedly happened around her 19th birthday. According to Denberg, Schneider asked for a meeting with her, seemingly to talk about her weight gain. Instead, Schneider allegedly showed her porn clips, and the “grand finale” was a video of a woman performing fellatio on a donkey. “I feel like that is the first time he preyed on me,” Denberg told Business Insider. In an episode of the recent docuseries Quiet on Set, Jenny Kilgen, a writer on The Amanda Show, also claimed that Schneider showed her pornography.
Schneider denied these claims and issued a statement to Business Insider, saying, “As I have previously stated, there were times, particularly in the early years of my career, that I made mistakes and exhibited poor judgment as a leader. If I did that with respect to Lori Beth, I sincerely apologize to her. But I cannot apologize for things I did not do.”
He took it further by issuing a statement to Variety about the journalist who interviewed Denberg, named Kate Taylor, claiming that because she was an executive producer on Quiet on Set, this seems intentional. “[The fact she] would pursue allegations regarding what may have happened between adults nearly thirty years ago — only a week after I filed a defamation lawsuit accusing ‘Quiet on Set’ of being intentionally false and misleading — seems more than coincidental.”
In her interview with Business Insider, Denberg claimed that she would have sleepovers with Schneider and they would give each other massages. She detailed one instance when the two were watching Jeopardy! and made a bet with each other. Whoever answered the most questions correctly would get a massage. Denberg won and said that Schneider fondled her breasts and put his mouth on them.
“I couldn’t have been more green,” said Denberg, who described her relationship with Schneider as a “weird, abusive friendship,” and noted, “I couldn’t have been more vulnerable.” She said Schneider allegedly called her and initiated phone sex with her one time and had sexually explicit conversations with her.
Denberg recalled a time when Schneider allegedly asked a table of writers and crew if they thought Denberg’s breasts were different sizes. She said she threw bread at Schneider, who yelled at her in response. “It was one of those turns that was just really upsetting and scary,” she said. “Everyone else seemed to completely blow it off.”
Denberg talked about going to the set of The Amanda Show and allegedly being banned from the set because she expressed concern about how Schneider was treating Amanda Bynes. Her claims are not the first, as multiple women have alleged that Schneider showed them porn without their consent.
