Drake Bell revealed he feels he finally feels “free” after coming forward as a victim of “unspeakable” child sexual abuse at the hands of former Nickelodeon speech coach Brian Peck.
While reflecting on breaking his silence about his trauma on Investigation Discovery’s new series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, the 37-year-old former child star explained how talking about his experience has helped him heal.
“The more I can talk about it and the more I can articulate my thoughts just to myself, in my own mind, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me and I feel liberated,” he said. he said in an upcoming episode of The Man Enough podcast, obtained by People.
Additionally, he acknowledged that any public scrutiny of his face has been “nothing compared to how he felt in the past.”
Drake Bell revealed he feels he finally feels “free” after coming forward as a victim of “unspeakable” child sexual abuse at the hands of former Nickelodeon speech coach Brian Peck.
The father-of-one also claimed that sharing his story prompted him to seek professional help in “rehabilitation” for “self-medication” issues.
‘[I] “He didn’t recognize me,” Bell explained, before noting that his actions were “out of character.”
In the end, the actor says he realized he could either “follow this path and that would be the end of my story” or “fight for what’s important to him.”
This led him to fight for his family, his relationships, and “peace.”
While appearing on Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV, Bell described Peck’s abuse of him, which allegedly began when he was 15 and working on The Amanda Show, as “the worst thing anyone could do to a person.”
He explained that his father had hired Peck, now 63, who was a speech coach at Nickelodeon, to coach his young son after his career began to take off.
But immediately, he said, the coach began to integrate into his life beyond simply helping him on set: attending the then-aspiring singer’s concerts and hosting his birthday parties.
She claimed that the sexual abuse began during a casting trip she was on with Brian at age 15, and that it only got “worse and worse” after that.
While reflecting on breaking his silence about his trauma on Investigation Discovery’s new series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, the 37-year-old former (R) child star explained how talking about his experience has helped him heal; seen in 2006
“The more I can talk about it and the more I can articulate my thoughts just to myself, in my own mind, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me and I feel liberated,” he said. he said in an upcoming episode of The Man Enough podcast, obtained by People; seen in 2017
He described it as “extensive” and recalled feeling “trapped,” admitting that he now “often looks back on that time and wonders how on earth he survived.”
“Brian and I became very close because we had a lot of the same interests, which, looking back, I think was probably a little calculated,” she shared.
Drake’s father, Joe, told viewers that he felt something was wrong from the beginning, but that Brian drove a wedge between him and his son.
“I was always within visible distance of them… I was very attentive,” Joe said.
“Unfortunately, I started to see that Brian was starting to hang around Drake too much and it didn’t sit well with me.”
Joe said Brian would walk into Drake’s dressing room and “put his arm around his waist, put his hand on his shoulder or put his hand around his arm.”
“This would happen routinely,” he added.
While at first Drake simply thought Brian was “his friend,” he said “everything changed” one day during a casting trip.
Drake, who was 15 at the time, explained that he was sleeping on a couch when he suddenly woke up and Brian “sexually assaulted him.”
“I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or how to react,” he recalled in the document.
The father of one also stated that sharing his story prompted him to seek professional help in ‘rehabilitation’ for ‘self-medication’ issues (seen in 2019).
“I was trapped and I had no way out,” the former Drake & Josh star shared. ‘The abuse was extensive and became quite brutal.
‘I really don’t know how to explain that on camera. Think about the worst things someone can do to someone like sexual assault and that will answer your question. I don’t know how else to say it.
Drake was a supporting actor on The Amanda Show from 1999 to 2002, and Brian worked with the actors during that period.
The actor became a major star after appearing on Drake & Josh from 2004 to 2007.
In August 2003, the vocal coach was arrested and charged with nearly a dozen counts related to allegations that he had sexually abused a then-unnamed minor.
Finally, he did not object to performing a lewd act with a young man of 14 or 15 years old and to oral copulation with a minor under 16 years old.
He received a 16-month prison sentence after his conviction and, in October 2004, was ordered to register as a sex offender.
Bell rose to fame on Drake & Josh from 2004 to 2007 (seen above on the hit Nickelodeon series)
In 2015, however, DailyMail.com revealed that Brian was still working on a Disney show and a horror movie set in high school, despite his conviction.
He was only prohibited from direct contact with children, which allowed him to continue being hired in other functions, even in projects that mainly involved children and adolescents.
It’s unclear if the people who hired Brian knew he was a convicted sex offender, although his IMDb page lists his criminal conviction.
He continued to have minor acting credits and worked as a dialogue coach during the 2000s and 2010s. His last appearance as a credited actor was in 2018, according to IMDb.