Former Nickelodeon child star Drake Bell has a few choice words for youngsters growing up in the business.

Bell gained fame on Amanda Bynes's The Amanda Show before getting his own Nickelodeon spinoff with Josh Peck, Drake & Josh (2004-2008). Now, the 27-year-old feels that many who gained fame at a similarly young age are unappreciative.

"There's just a lot of really young, entitled people," he told BuzzFeed. "I don't think a lot of these young people have to work very hard. They're found on YouTube and, boom, thrown into the studio, so they think they can get anything they want."

Bell also noted how Nickelodeon star Ariana Grande became "a billionaire before she's been an artist," although the estimate seems to be a gross exaggeration according to Celebrity Net Worth, which lists the star at $5 million.

"You have to work to be able to appreciate what you have, and what work did she ever have to do in her life?" he said of 20-year-old Grande.

According to Bell, celebrities have the responsibility of making an effort to improve the world.

"We didn't sign up to be role models, but we are," Bell explained. "Artists like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga have more sway over popular minds than a politician. They could get on a pedestal and say, 'This is how you should treat people,' but instead [Bieber's] going around telling kids that as long as you have enough money and swag, you can do whatever you want."

The actor/musician cites Twitter as a source of celebrity fandom gone wrong.

"Lady Gaga, who says she's so anti-bullying, was on [Howard Stern's SiriusXM show] and Howard read all of these awful, awful tweets her fans had been sending him, [and] asked how she responded to her fans doing the exact antithesis of what she stands for," Bell recalled. "She said, 'You have to understand, Howard, it comes from a place of love. They don't want to see me get hurt.'"

Bieber, who Bell has publicly insulted and stated should be deported, is also on Bell's naughty Twitter list.

"Justin Bieber just tweets, 'Yeah, Beliebers, go hard' when they're attacking somebody," Bell said. "Ariana Grande's fans told Perez Hilton that he and his son needed to die and get cancer, and she just fed it. It's disgusting."

(Grande did, however, make a plea to fans to stop the harassment during her past feud with Hilton.)

Bell plans on taking the misguided youth into his own hands.

"A lot of artists try to run away from that fanbase 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*cking drive fast cars," he said.

---

Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @SH____4.

Related