In a sit-down a 12 months after the discharge of Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Darkish Aspect of Youngsters TV, Drake Bell — whose revelations of experiencing sexual abuse by the hands of his former Nickelodeon dialogue coach/supervisor Brian Peck triggered huge shockwaves all through the trade — mentioned he has skilled a “curler coaster of feelings” amid the help he’s acquired.
“It’s been a very nice weight lifted,” he advised Individuals. “It’s a curler coaster of feelings. I don’t need to sugarcoat it and make the message, ‘Hey, all you bought to do is simply inform any person and get your story out and once you get up the subsequent day, it’s going to be gone and the whole lot’s going to be effective and also you’re going to stroll by means of life with none ache or sorrow or unhappiness!’ It’s at all times going to be there, nevertheless it’s rather a lot nicer getting help.”
Bell, finest identified for his roles in The Amanda Present and as one-half of the starring duo in Drake & Josh, added that it was “good” to obtain apologies from Hollywood colleagues who had beforehand written letters of help for Peck amid his sentencing for his crimes, for which he acquired 16 months in jail and was required to register as a intercourse offender. Amongst those that had penned letters have been James Marsden, Taran Killam and Boy Meets World actors Will Friedle and Rider Sturdy, with whom Peck beforehand labored.
Bell recalled the messages he acquired as being alongside the strains of: “‘I used to be fully lied to and bamboozled by this particular person, and it was a very totally different story that was advised to me. I might’ve by no means written that letter. I’m so ashamed.’”
Peck was arrested in 2003 on 11 expenses, together with sodomy, lewd act upon a toddler 14 or 15 by an individual 10 years older and oral copulation by anesthesia or managed substance, however the minor was by no means named till the discharge of Quiet on Set, the place Bell spoke of the abuse — which occurred throughout his tenure on The Amanda Present on the flip of the millennium — for the primary time.
Within the docuseries, Bell — now primarily a singer-songwriter based mostly out of Mexico Metropolis — mentioned his experiences led him towards a self-destructive path together with substance and alcohol abuse. In 2021, he entered a responsible plea for a felony cost of tried little one endangerment and a misdemeanor cost of disseminating matter dangerous to juveniles, for which he acquired two years of probation and 200 hours of group service.
