Former co-star tried to rally Nickelodeon cast to help Kianna Underwood years before fatal NYC hit-run

An original “All That” cast member tried to sound the alarm that former child actress Kianna Underwood was homeless and in need of help more than two years before the Nickelodeon actress was killed in a chaotic hit-and-run accident in Brooklyn.

Angelique Bates took to Instagram in November 2023, after learning that the young actress was homeless in New York, to appeal to the show’s cast and Nickelodeon for help.

“I don’t know what the big picture is. You don’t know if there’s an addiction. You don’t know if there’s a mental illness. You don’t know what’s at stake right now,” she said, adding that fundraising wouldn’t be enough. “There needs to be a plan to make sure they get all the appropriate help.”

Bates appeared in the first two seasons of the sketch series and shared scenes with SNL star Kenan Thompson.

“She’s literally one of the babies,” Bates said. “Every season after us, they were the babies…they were the ones who took care of us.”

“If some of us are already acting like we are and we’re, you know, big brothers or big sisters or whatever… everyone deserves help, but don’t be selective,” she said in a live video. “She’s one of us and she needs help, but she’s not getting it.”

She was particularly frustrated that Underwood was living on the streets in New York, where Nickelodeon is headquartered.

The series has “recasts and reunions and everything, and no one talks about Kianna Underwood.”

After Underwood’s death, Bates posted: “You have no idea how much this one hurts… My stomach hurts… So many people have failed, little girl.” »

Underwood was killed in a horrific hit-and-run in Brooklyn Friday morning, hitting two drivers — and the first was driving on the wrong side of the street against traffic, police told the Daily News Saturday.

Initially, cops identified only one car — described as a black sedan — as being involved, saying it hit the former Nickelodeon star, 33, then dragged her for two blocks until her body fell out from underneath.

New information from police revealed that Underwood was crossing the street in the crosswalk against a red light at the intersection of Pitkin Avenue and Mother Gaston Boulevard. in Brownsville around 6:50 a.m. when she was first struck by the driver of a black 2021 Ford Explorer SUV.

The driver of the SUV was heading west and had the light on Pitkin Ave., but crossed the double yellow line to pass another vehicle trying to turn right and struck Underwood, cops said.

The driver continued and moments later, a second driver in a black and gray sedan hit her and dragged her for more than two blocks. The driver of the sedan also fled, police said. EMS pronounced Underwood dead at the scene.

No arrests have been made.

Underwood, who grew up in New York, starred in films and TV shows in the late ’90s and early 2000s. She was just 6 years old when, in 1999, she made her first film appearance in “24 Hour Lady.”

She appeared in the first national tour of “Hairspray” as little Inez and appeared in seven episodes of the Nickelodeon sketch series “All That.”

Friends and neighbors remembered Underwood as a kind, talented young girl with a beautiful voice who had fallen on hard times after her childhood glory years. People who knew her in Brownsville said she was homeless.

“She modeled for me when she was 5 and 6. I had a modeling agency…She was beautiful and I just hit on her,” said TC Jackson, a resident of the Lincoln Houses NYCHA complex in Harlem, where Underwood’s family lived for more than 25 years.

“After doing two fashion shows, she went on television. She did TV commercials. She had real talent. She did Nickelodeon and then we didn’t see her again after that.”