Former child star-turned-musician Drake Bell has had it with his peers.
“I don’t think a lot of these young people have to work very hard,” the 27-year-old told Buzzfeed in an interview published Tuesday. “They’re found on YouTube and, boom, thrown into the studio so they think they can get anything they want. Ariana Grande is a billionaire before she’s been an artist. You have to work to be able to appreciate what you have, and what work did she ever have to do in her life?”
The musician, who got his start on the Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh,” didn’t just have unkind words for fellow Nickelodeon alumni Grande, 20, either — he also criticized Lady Gaga and longtime target Justin Bieber‘s inability to rein in fans.
“I can’t stand that, with a lot of the pop stars, there’s this idea of ‘Are you in our clique? Are you a Directioner or are you a Belieber? Oh, you’re not in our gang? Then you’re not cool and you need to go in a hole and die,'” Bell said. “I don’t understand it. And what’s worse is artists like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber don’t come out and say, ‘I love having you as my fans, but you shouldn’t be acting this way.’ They just eat it all up, and I think it’s repulsive.”
The former actor also says he intervenes when necessary to keep fans in check.
“If I catch one of my fans saying something improper, a gay slur or any derogatory term, I instantly tweet directly at them and say, ‘This isn’t how we do it,'” he said.
Bell also questioned how much artists actually care about their fans, throwing another barb at Bieber.
“A lot of artists try to run away from that fan base so quickly, but I would rather have my audience grow with me than to suddenly turn my back on them because I’m an adult now, because I take my clothes off, smoke weed, and f—king drive fast cars,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Bell’s thrown shade at Bieber. He took him to task on Twitter after police raided the Canadian’s Los Angeles-area mansion in January and urged his fans to sign a petition calling for the “Baby” singer’s deportation.
“Hey @justinbieber how much are you paying Lil Za to take the coke wrap for ya? Be a man and take responsibility. Learn to be an ADULT!” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet.