Ariana Grande is ‘reprocessing’ her time as a child star on ‘Victorious’
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Ariana Grande feels “privileged” to have been able to create her role on “Victorious” when she was a teen, but she’s viewing it through a different lens now as an adult.
The Grammy-winning singer, who got her start as a child actor on the Nickelodeon series, reflected on her experiences working on the show in a conversation for Penn Badgley’s “Podcrushed” podcast.
“I was 14 and I flew out to audition with Liz Gillies [who played Jade West] for ‘Victorious’ and we were all very excited and we got cast and it was the best news we could hear,” Grande recalled to Badgley. “We were young performers who just wanted to do this with our lives more than anything. And, yeah, and we got to and that was so beautiful. “
Grande starred in “Victorious” from 2010 to 2013.
“I think we had some very special memories, and we feel so privileged to have been able to create those roles and be a part of something that was so special for a lot of young kids,” she added. “I think we’re reprocessing our relationship to it now, if that makes any sense.”
Badgley, who costars in Grande’s new music video “The Boy Is Mine,” asked her how she felt about working in the spotlight at a young age.
“I think the environment needs to be made safer if kids are going to be acting and I think there should be therapists,” she said. “I think parents should allowed to be wherever they want to be and I think not only on kids’ sets.”
Therapy should be mandatory for any children who are performers from acting to singing, Grande said, adding that hearing about claims of negative experiences from some fellow child performers has been “devastating.”
“I think the environment just needs to be made a lot safer all around,” Grande said. “I’m still in real-time reprocessing my relationship to it.”
Grande will next return to screens in “Wicked: Part 1” in November.
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