Former Nickelodeon headliner Drake Bell is opening up about the “brutal” sexual abuse he experienced as a child star on Nickelodeon‘s The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh. In the second part of Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, Investigation Discovery’s shocking new docuseries, Bell spoke up for the first time about being sexually assaulted by his dialogue coach turned parental figure, Brian Peck, who would later be convicted of child molestation in 2004.
In the harrowing segment, the actor-musician revealed a few previously unknown details about the now-two-decades-old case, in which he was referred to as John Doe due to his status as a minor. Here are the most shocking details from his emotional TV testimony.
Drake Bell’s father knew something was very wrong after his 15th birthday party.
In the docuseries, Drake Bell’s father, Robert Bell, who was his manager at the start of his career in acting and music, detailed when he started to realize something was wrong with Peck and his relationship with the then-child actor.
“I started seeing Brian start to just hang around Drake too much, and it just didn’t sit well with me. Drake would be in the dressing room or something, and in would pop Brian and just touch Drake… Then he’d may be walk over to Drake and be feeding him some lines or whatever and put his arm around his waist, put his hand upon his shoulder and kind of run it down his arm and things like that. And this would happen routinely. It was just always uncomfortable,” Robert remembered.
When he went to the production team to report his concerns, Robert said he was confronted with an accusation of tacit bigotry, explaining, “She just goes, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know if you knew it or not, but he’s gay. Maybe you’re just homophobic and you just don’t understand that that’s — he’s a touchy-feely guy.’ So I said, ‘Okay,’ and then it just kept not sitting well with me. So I told people on the set, and I was ostracized. And so I backed off.”
Then, when Peck hosted Drake’s 15th birthday party, Robert noticed that the cards Drake received from Brian and his friends were “inappropriate.”
Brian Peck drove a wedge between Drake Bell and his dad.
After Drake’s birthday incident, his father Robert began to demand there be distance between him and Peck. However, his efforts ultimately backfired, and he was edged out of Drake’s life instead.
“My dad started making it very difficult for Brian to be around me. I think Brian got a sense that my dad was on the watch. And so he started to really drive a wedge between my dad and me. He started talking about how my dad’s stealing my money, nobody likes that my dad’s on set, he’s a real problem,” Drake remembered.
He then decided to move in with his mother, but because he lived so far away from work and auditions, he relied on Peck to take him around town and regularly stayed at his house.
Drake Bell was assaulted by Brian Peck at the age of 15.
Things took a devastating turn for Drake Bell when he awoke to find Brian Peck sexually assaulting him at the age of 15.
“I was sleeping on a couch where I would usually sleep, and I woke up to him — I opened my eyes, I woke up and he was sexually assaulting me. And I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or how to react, and I had no idea how to get out of the situation,” he remembered in a devastating testimonial for the show. “I had no car. I didn’t drive. I was 15 at this time.”
He felt pressured to keep the abuse a secret, even as it got worse.
Per Drake, he felt pressured to keep the abuse a secret from everyone he knew. “I couldn’t say I no longer wanted to go to Brian’s house because then they’re gonna raise questions, ‘Well, why don’t you want to go to Brian’s?’ He’s so apologetic, all, ‘Oh, this will never happen again. Sorry. I don’t know what got into me, and I crossed the line and that will never happen again,’” he remembered.
Unfortunately, though, things only got worse for him as Peck’s abuse escalated.
“He figured out how to convince my mom … anytime I would have an audition or anytime I needed to work on dialogue or anything, I somehow ended up back at Brian’s house, and it just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and I was just trapped,” Drake explained. “I had no way out. The abuse was extensive. And it got pretty brutal.”
He finally exploded with the truth in a phone call to his mother.
Drake Bell kept the details of this abuse under wraps, even after his girlfriend’s mother insisted he go to therapy to discuss what was going on with him, following an alarming series of repeated phone calls to his phone and hers by Peck. He even managed to put on a happy face in public enough to launch his own new show Drake & Josh. However, the tension inside of him boiled over when Peck tried to join his new show.
“We ended up having to reshoot the pilot for Drake & Josh, and Brian was trying to get me to convince Dan [Schneider], that he should be the dad on the show. And I was like, ‘That is not gonna happen. You’re not going anywhere near this show.’”
Soon after, in a phone call with his mother, he finally spoke up about what he’d been experiencing for so long.
“I just exploded. I have no idea what provoked it. I have no idea what happened. But I just screamed into everything that had been happening. My mom immediately called the police,” Drake remembered.
He was then asked to contact Peck and provoke a confession from him on the phone, which he did.
Drake Bell couldn’t bring himself to tell his father what happened.
After Peck was arrested for lewd acts with a child in 2003, Drake called his father Robert to see if he’d heard about the arrest. In response, his father expressed relief that he’d been caught before he could do harm to Drake, and Drake couldn’t bear to tell him the truth that he was the John Doe victim of the incident.
Brian Peck received support from some surprising sources.
Drake Bell remembered being shocked the day he walked into court for Peck’s sentencing because of the sheer number of people there to support the now-convicted defendant.
“His entire side of the courtroom was full. There were definitely some recognizable faces on that side of the room. And my side was me, my mom, and my brother,” he said. “Brian had been convicted, getting all this support from a lot of people in the industry. And I was pretty shocked.”
Peck received additional support in the form of letters from those in his Hollywood circle, including actors like James Marsden, Taran Killam, Will Friedle, Rider Strong, Joanna Kerns, and dozens of other industry folks. (Many of them have since expressed regret for their letters.)
At the hearing, Drake decided not to speak to Peck himself but to the folks who were seated in support of him, saying, “How dare you? I said, you will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person. And I will forever have the memory of the person you’re defending violating me and doing unspeakable acts and crimes. And that’s what I’ll remember.”
Peck ultimately served 16 months in prison for his crimes.
Drake Bell believes his subsequent trouble stems from this assault.
In recent years, Bell’s name has been in headlines for the wrong reasons, including multiple arrests for driving under the influence, pleading guilty to charges of child endangerment and disseminating material that was harmful to juveniles, and a strange missing persons scare.
In the docuseries, he addressed those very publicized scandals and attributed his behavior to his experiences with abuse as a child.
“There was definitely a slow decline in my mental health and sobriety. I mean, DUIs, behaviors that were happening because I was lost… I took responsibility for that. I did what was asked of me. But the media grabbed a hold of so much misinformation. And it absolutely destroyed me. And I started to spin out of control,” he explained. “If I’d continued down the path, that could very likely be the end of my story.”
He went on to reveal that he decided to finally get help, explaining, “I was at rock bottom, and so I checked into treatment. And I got to go through a lot of trauma therapy, a lot of grief therapy, and be surrounded by people who, for the first time in a long time, just wanted to see me get better.”
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
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