After it became available to Max subscribers this past March, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV sparked conversations about the entertainment landscape. Investigation Discovery’s five-part docuseries centers around the workplace culture at Nickelodeon throughout the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Throughout the course of the program, a number of former child stars opened up about their negative experiences with the network.
Others who found themselves in the young actors’ orbits at that time have spoken out after hearing their stories. And one former teen magazine editor, who watched the doc is now recalling a lunch she had with a starlet, which saw the latter seeking to eliminate the bread that was on the table to “avoid temptation.” Veteran journalist Lauren Brown West-Rosenthal has worked for a number of news outlets over the years, including MTV, Us Weekly and Glamour.
She earned her big break, however, when she landed an editor job at the now-defunct CosmoGIRL!. In that position, West-Rosenthal was able to speak with a number of teen stars during the early aughts. She detailed those experiences in an essay she penned for The Today Show .
Among her recollections was one particular meet-up with an unnamed actress, who apparently dumped water onto her basket of bread: I once went to lunch with an up-and-coming starlet who took two bites of her salad before unscrewing the bottle of salt on the table and dumping the contents all over her uneaten lettuce. She then poure.