What Happened To Victoria Justice After Nickelodeon's Victorious?
After starring on "Zoey 101," Victoria Justice cemented herself as a tween icon when she took on the lead role in Nickelodeon's "Victorious." Set at a performing arts high school (so "Fame," but in L.A. and with a laugh track), the show introduced Justice as a talented singer named Tori Vega. The series also gave pop star Ariana Grande and "Dynasty" actor Elizabeth Gillies their first tastes of fame.
It was a good time to be on Nickelodeon, as the 2000s were truly the golden age of the popular kids' network with its wacky sitcoms about young people. But starring on a major TV series by the age of 15, as Justice did, is no small feat and it certainly isn't easy. Thankfully, Justice was rewarded for her efforts with a slew of kudos, like three Kids' Choice Awards nominations. While appearing on "Victorious," Justice also stayed busy with a pop music career before scoring some voice work and guest-star gigs. However, she's definitely not as visible as she once was during the early 2010s ... and here's why.
Victoria Justice got Nick-ed
Hollywood has always been a stratified world of niches. Once stars get entrenched in a certain genre, style, or medium, it's hard for them to get casting agents and audiences to accept them beyond the areas where they've been pigeonholed. That's why we have terms like "scream queen" to describe actors who made a name for themselves in cheesy horror movies and "former child star" to label performers who struck it big when they were kids.
Victoria Justice has two such typecasting roadblocks in her way. First, she was a child and teen star, and second, she'll forever be linked with "Victorious," the show that made her a household name. So, she may have difficulty getting taken seriously as an adult actor because she's primarily associated with kid stuff that aired on basic cable years ago.
"I don't think it's fair to criticize people for the career choices they're making," she explained to E! News about her post-child star transition. "At the end of the day, transitioning from a child star to an adult is a tricky thing. Everyone is different and trying to be true to themselves and follow their own path. I think that's all you can really do is try and do what's best for you." Some young actors from cornball children's sitcoms have left that kind of work and moved on to more relevant material. Take Cole Sprouse, for instance, who went from "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" to starring on the CW's dark and twisted "Riverdale."
Fun Size was a king-sized flop
By 2012, "Victorious" was a huge hit with kids, and Victoria Justice was, too. So much so that Nickelodeon made the no-brainer decision to cast the actress in the lead role of a theatrical film — "Fun Size." There aren't all that many Halloween movies that aren't horror movies, and "Fun Size" looked to fill that niche. In the movie, Justice plays Wren, a high school senior who wants to go out and party with her friend, April (portrayed by Jane Levy of "Suburgatory" and "Castle Rock"), on Halloween, but she's stuck watching her little brother ... who disappears into the craziness of the night.
"A lot of scripts that I was being sent were fluffy, cheesy movies, which isn't what I want to do," Justice told Teen Vogue about the role. "When I read 'Fun Size,' I thought it was hilarious, and cool and edgy, too. It was a movie that I would want to go see in the movies."
But critics didn't find "Fun Size" all that fun, giving it a score of just 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. Curiously, Justice's fan base didn't flock to see the movie either, as it raked in a paltry $11.4 million at the box office. At the peak of her fame and popularity, Justice was given a chance to break out onto the silver screen, and it sadly didn't pan out.
Not enough people focused their eyes on Eye Candy
Where do Nickelodeon viewers go when they grow too old to watch Nickelodeon? MTV, of course, which has long offered up teen shows for teens instead of tween shows for tweens. In 2015, MTV hoped to move eyeballs over from its sister network by placing Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice at the center of a more mature drama series called "Eye Candy." A creepy thriller in the vein of hit scripted shows like "Teen Wolf" and "Scream," "Eye Candy" was based on a book of the same name by horror master and millennial icon R.L. Stine. The plot: A tech wizard named Lindy, played by Justice, gets into the online dating scene only to discover that a potential mate is a murderous cyber stalker.
The show's ten episodes explored Lindy tracking down the deadly pursuer on the mean streets of New York with the help of a team of hackers. It was a major stylistic shift for Justice, a grab at something totally out of her wheelhouse. Fans didn't respond, however, and MTV shut down "Eye Candy" after a single season, where it averaged less than 600,000 viewers.
She was plagued by rumors that she crossed Ariana Grande
Over the 2010 to 2013 run of "Victorious" on Nickelodeon, star Victoria Justice and scene-stealer Ariana Grande made 57 episodes of kid-com TV magic together. But, unfortunately, there were rumors that they maybe, kind of hated each other. That's right – Justice and Grande seemingly engaged in a good old-fashioned Tinseltown feud.
For years, rumblings of a rivalry between the stars spread around young Hollywood circles and the internet. The main reason, it would seem, was that Justice made life a nightmare for Grande on the set of "Victorious." Justice attempted to "set the record straight" on a January 2015 episode of "The Meredith Vieira Show." "So basically, there was an article in Seventeen magazine where [Ariana] had said that she was bullied on set, and the magazine basically alluded to it being me," Justice explained.
She noted that Grande had even given her a heads-up before the article came out to let her know that she was actually referring to somebody from her Broadway days and not Justice. "But once it got out there everyone thought I was this bully and that I was mean to her," she said on the talk show. "Which couldn't be further from the truth." Although Justice admitted to the two having their "differences," she insisted there was no beef.
Her music career didn't initially take off after Victorious
As the breakout stars of "Victorious," Victoria Justice and Ariana Grande used the show to help launch singing careers ... because, well, that's the kind of cross-media branding that Nickelodeon (and the Disney Channel, for that matter) loves to do. Justice's time as a singer came first, and her songs were all over the soundtrack for 2009's "Spectacular!" — a made-for-TV musical that was Nickelodeon's answer to "High School Musical" — and three "Victorious" compilations of songs from the show. Justice scored a couple of minor hits from those albums, such as "Freak the Freak Out" and "Best Friend's Brother."
And ... that's it. At the time, Justice's music career fizzled out right around the time that "Victorious" left the air. Without the series to showcase her music, and without her music to showcase her show, Justice got overlooked by radio stations and music buyers, similar to the ones who made Grande a full-fledged pop superstar. Since Grande launched her music career in 2013, she has left "Victorious" far behind in the rear view mirror to become one of the biggest pop stars in the world, scoring chart-toppers like "7 Rings," "Thank U, Next," "Problem," and "No Tears Left to Cry."
She battled an autoimmune disorder
Two years after "Victorious" took a bow in 2013, star Victoria Justice revealed she had been dealing with an autoimmune disorder known as Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The disorder affects thyroid levels and overall metabolism, causing weight fluctuations and other symptoms to take place. "I was losing a lot of weight, then I went on tour and I started gaining weight, and it was the most I'd ever gained in my life," the actor shared with Health magazine (via People) in 2015.
Justice also revealed that her symptoms also affected her skin. "It made me a little bit more self-conscious," she revealed. "But at the end of the day, I had the support of my family and friends. I knew that the people around me had my back. Now I really empathize with people who have issues with their skin, because it can get you down."
The actor was eventually able to stabilize her condition and get off of her medication. She began working with a trainer and started a vitamin regimen to keep up with her health. "To be honest, I used to hate working out, but as I've gotten older, I've realized that it gives me so much more energy, and it just makes me feel so much better," she gushed about her routine.
Justice played the lead in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Broadcast TV networks have gone out of their way to make musicals happen, marketing them as massive TV events that bring the electricity of live theater to viewers at home on their couches. Some of these remakes of beloved Broadway and movie musicals have been huge hits, such as "Grease" and "The Sound of Music." Actors who appeared in them have earned rave reviews and a credibility boost, too; John Legend even scored an Emmy nomination for his role in the live version of "Jesus Christ Superstar."
One would think that similar cultural impact — and praise for its star — would have come for Fox's "The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again," which starred Victoria Justice. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Justice had the necessary acting and musical chops to play newlywed-gone-wild Janet, taking over for Susan Sarandon, who originated the role in the 1975 cult classic film. But for some reason, this televised musical did not cause a stir. The "Rocky Horror" remake rocked a lowly score of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and less than five million people tuned in to watch.
She has made several TV appearances post-Victorious
Since MTV discontinued "Eye Candy" in 2015, Victoria Justice continued to appear on television. After showing up on two episodes of "Undateable" (playing a fetching singer named Amanda), the actress appeared on a couple installments of "Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life" as a deceptively nice yet cutthroat businessperson. Justice then put in an appearance on Matt LeBlanc's "Man with a Plan" as a babysitter, as well as a passive-aggressive classroom helper on "American Housewife." What do all these shows have in common? None of them are exactly high-profile. "Undateable" and "Cooper Barrett" were both short-lived and little-watched sitcoms, while "Man with a Plan" and "American Housewife" are middling-ly successful network offerings overshadowed by flashier entries in the age of peak TV.
While promoting her 2023 film, "The Tutor," Justice discussed the differences between being a TV mainstay and a film actor. "When you do TV it is nice to be able to kind of sit with the character for longer and really get to like flesh that out," she explained to Us Weekly. "To have that stability is so nice."
Justice advocated for an unlikely Victorious reunion
To move into the future, one must sometimes look to the past ... and latch onto it. As the TV industry has been obsessed with reboots and reunions in more recent years, it seems like any at least mildly successful show has staged a comeback, everything from "Twin Peaks" to "All That." Basically, the climate is theoretically ripe for some kind of "Victorious" revival. It's not something that has been publicly announced or anything, but Victoria Justice, perhaps looking for a boost from revisiting familiar territory, is already very much on board.
"If the decision was ever made to do a reunion, I'd be down for that, and I think everyone else would be too," Justice told HuffPost back in 2016. "We talked about it, yeah, but ... It was all kind of like a theoretical thing, and it never really came to fruition."
Seeing as how Justice made these comments years ago, during which time co-stars Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gilles became far too busy to likely revisit their old sitcom, more "Victorious" episodes probably aren't on the way to help revive Justice's career. The cast did briefly reunite for the show's 10th anniversary via Zoom during the pandemic, but nothing scripted or on-air has seemingly been planned.
She pivoted to film work
While Victoria Justice became famous for her work on television, she has tried her hand on the silver screen as well. At the end of the 2010s, Justice starred in two potentially major film projects. One of them was 2019's "Summer Night," an ensemble romantic comedy in the vein of "Love, Actually" about a bunch of young couples falling in and out of love. Justice also appeared in "Bigger," a 2018 biopic about Joe and Ben Weider, the bodybuilding brothers who basically started America's obsession with fitness in the mid-20th century. The actress played Kathy Weider, a character based on Joe Weider's first wife. Unfortunately, neither of those films saw a wide release, and Justice wasn't even featured on the poster of the latter.
In 2021, Justice jumped to Netflix with the comedy "Afterlife of the Party," in which she starred as an event planner who unexpectedly dies and has to help guide her friends through their lives in order to get into Heaven. The film was generally reviewed negatively by critics, but some praised the film for delving into loss in a tender way.
"It's really just a reminder to, you know, be as kind as you can be every day," Justice said of the film to ComingSoon.net. "And tell the people that you love, that you love them as much as possible because you never know when it's all gonna be taken away."
She has found and lost some love
Victoria Justice has had her fair share of love in and out of the spotlight. After appearing together in Fox's "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" live adaptation in 2016, she began dating co-star Reeve Carney that year. While the two never directly confirmed their romance, they seemed to go strong for years. Justice would even share Carney's original music on her social media platforms. "My ridiculously talented #RockyHorror cast mate @reevecarney just dropped his album ... and it's AMAZING," she shared in one 2016 Instagram post. "If your ears are in need of some great music, get it on iTunes now!"
Carney returned the love by welcoming Justice backstage during a performance of "Hadestown" when he was the lead on Broadway. The love didn't seem to last, though, as the couple reportedly broke up in early 2019. In a potentially scandalous twist, Carney was almost immediately linked with fellow "Hadestown" star (and then married) Eva Noblezada after his breakup with Justice.
While she is not really PDA-heavy with her love interests off-screen, Justice's last reported flame was TikTok star Evan Berger, as the pair were spotted together at a 2022 festival in Las Vegas. Since then, Justice has kept quiet on the romance front, instead largely focusing on her career.
She returned to her roots as a singer during the pandemic
Victoria Justice is first and foremost a performer, and by 2020, she was ready to showcase her singing talents once again for fans. In 2020, she had planned to release an EP before the global pandemic halted her (and everyone's) plans. "My hope was to complete a full musical project and have an album or EP to release, but of course 2020 has not exactly turned out as many of us planned," Justice shared with fans in an Instagram post.
Instead, she decided to release her single, "Treat Myself," her first single in seven years at the time. "I hope you connect with this song in some way and I hope it can also empower you," Justice told fans of the song in her post. "It comes from the heart and I'm so excited to finally share something with you all!" She even followed up with another track in 2021, called "Too F***in' Nice."
By 2023, Justice was ready to showcase her next new single, "Last Man Standing." This time, she even teased a full album to go along with the song. "I definitely am releasing an album — that's happening," Justice confirmed to Variety. "I can't say that that is done right now by any means, but I think right now, I'm focusing on releasing some singles. I have a collection of songs right now that I'm really proud of." In 2023, she also debuted a cover of Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" alongside Toby Gad.
She set some things straight about her Nickelodeon past
Since her Nickelodeon days, Victoria Justice has been sure to clear the air about some of the long-standing rumors that surround her work from that era. After years of fielding rumors of a feud with "Victorious" co-star Ariana Grande, Justice shared that she and the pop star had cleared the (already clean) air in 2023. "Ariana texted me and we both were like, 'This is so stupid,'" she said in an interview with E! News. "I feel like it's this constant story of like the media and people wanting to pit people against each other, and it's just so not even relevant anymore now ... I was like, 'This is so dumb.' Ten years later! ... How is this even a story? This is so stupid."
Justice also spoke about why she chose not to be in 2023's "Zoey 102," the sequel film to the Jamie Lynn Spears-starring show that originally ran from 2005 to 2008. "I had a lot going on at the moment, to be honest, and timing-wise it was just hard to make it all work," she revealed to Pop Culture Planet. But just because she couldn't reunite with her co-stars on screen doesn't mean she wasn't cheering them on from afar. "I really wish I could have been there, to be honest. I'm sad that I missed out on it because I really do love each of them, but I'm sure the film looks amazing ... I'm rooting for them so hard. I can't wait to see it."