Mother Of Former "The Amanda Show" Child Actor Shares Her Daughter's Alleged Sexual Misconduct Story
This post contains discussions of sexual misconduct involving a child.
The mother of a former child star on The Amanda Show has come forward to share her daughter's alleged experience with sexual misconduct.
The claims were made in Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV — an upcoming docuseries from Investigation Discovery that explores the BTS of famous '90s and 2000s children's shows.
Her daughter, Brandi, appeared in one episode of The Amanda Show, which ran from 1999 to 2002. About a week after filming, her mom said, Brandi allegedly began receiving emails from a production assistant, Jason Handy.
"She let me read it," the mom claimed. "It was very innocent. It just talked about the shows that he had been working on."
"After that, they were emailing more. [Brandi] would tell me, 'I got an email from Jason. He's doing this, he's doing that.' I didn't see any harm in it."
A couple of months later, she alleges, that changed. "[Brandi] was sitting at the computer, and all of a sudden, I noticed she had suddenly shut down the computer completely and got up and ran into her bedroom and slammed the bedroom door shut."
When she went to check on her, she claimed Brandi started crying before tearfully revealing that Jason had allegedly sent her a nude photo of himself in a sex act.
"I went back and forth with, Should I call the police?" the mom shared. "They're gonna think I'm a bad parent because I allowed her to talk to this person. I struggled with it."
Ultimately, she decided to completely separate her daughter from Jason, but she said Brandi no longer had acting aspirations after that. "She left the business and never returned."
Jason was arrested in 2003 on multiple counts of lewd acts with children, according to reports. He was convicted and spent six years in prison. However, he was reportedly rearrested in 2014 on charges including indecent liberties with a child and sex offender registry violations.
Nickelodeon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Quiet On Set airs this Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m. ET.
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453(4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.