Former Zoey 101 actor Matthew Underwood is sharing that he was sexually assaulted by his former agent.
In a post shared on social media, Matthew revealed that the experience with the agent is what made him ultimately decide to quit acting.
“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 was crushed,” he wrote in a statement shared on Instagram on March 29, 2024. “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 ending my pursuit of acting.”
The former actor, now 33, is best known for playing Logan Reese on the Nickelodeon series that ran from 2005 to 2008. He reprised his role in the 2023 rom-com Zoey 102, a sequel film to the Nickelodeon series that also starred original cast members Jamie Lynn Spears, Erin Sanders, Sean Flynn, and Christopher Massey.
Matthew spoke out regarding his assault in light of Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV documentary, which features allegations against Dan Schneider, the creator of Zoey 101. He revealed that internet users have been harassing him online to speak out following the release of the doc series.
“Lately, many people have been blowing up my email telling they hope me and my mom die and that we burn in hell, I’m being called a pedophile defender and all that jazz,” he wrote. “I have spent many years rebuilding my self-image and those hateful words have little effect on me today.”
He continued, “I imagine many friends in the business are being equally harassed if they aren’t joining the chorus, so I’m sharing this with hope that some of you can recognize that just because a person doesn’t shout from the rooftops that pedophiles are bad or that people can suck — that does not mean they don’t have their own reasons for staying silent, good reasons, personal reasons.”
The former child star then went on to explain he “never had a bad experience” working on Nickelodeon and “never had a bad experience with Dan.”
“I have nothing to add to the conversation that anyone would care to hear,” he said of his former boss. “I like to believe people have the capacity to be better humans and Dan appears to recognize that he had been an asshole in his past. I like to believe he is fully capable of being a creator and coworker everyone can enjoy working with. I have no expectation to work with him again, this is just me wanting good for anyone who wants to be better.”
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