Drake Bell put Rider Strong and Will Friedle on blast for acknowledging their history with Brian Peck on a podcast — but allegedly not making any effort to apologize to him for how they supported the convicted sexual abuser.
Fellow Nickelodeon star Alexis Nikolas initially called out Strong, 44, and Friedle, 47, on Friday, March 15, in a social media post. Nikolas, 31, claimed Strong and Friedle chose Hollywood and their hit sitcom Boy Meets World over publicly defending Bell, 37, after he accused dialogue coach Peck, 63, (who has no relation to Bell’s former costar Josh Peck) of sexual abuse when he was a minor.
Nikolas received several comments from fans who defended Strong and Friedle by pointing out that they did address their complicated past friendship with Peck.
Bell swiftly entered the chat when he replied to a social media user, writing, “Will was 27 years old and Brian told him what he did. Many people turned away and said no I won’t write a letter but they did. Will was not manipulated. Brian admitted it to him and he wrote the letter anyway.”
Friedle, who wrote a letter of support for Peck and attended his 2004 sentencing, later worked with Bell on a project.
“Then he worked with me on many many episodes of spider man years later and never said a word to me about it,” Bell continued. “This is because they were told their letters are going to be made public. Everyone thought the letters would be sealed forever and no one would ever see them. This is their publicist telling them how to get ahead of the story.”
Bell also slammed another comment that pointed out how young Strong and Friedle were when Peck was arrested.
“No he wasn’t. RIDER WAS 24 years old when he wrote the letter and was told by Brian what he did,” Bell claimed. “He wrote the letter anyway.”
Investigation Discovery released a trailer in February for Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which centered around discussions of a toxic work environment at Nickelodeon. In a follow-up clip, the network’s former cast and crew discussed how Peck was arrested in August 2003 after he was accused of sexually abusing a then-unnamed child. Peck pleaded no contest to performing a lewd act with a victim around 14 or 15 years old and to oral copulation with a child under 16 years old, which resulted in a 16-month prison sentence.
The documentary, which was released on March 17 and 18, confirmed that Bell was the child star involved in the lawsuit. Before the docuseries aired on ID, Strong and Friedle addressed their past friendship with Peck on their “Pod Meets World” podcast.
According to Strong, he wasn’t aware of the charges brought against Peck at the time.
“He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that story line,” Strong said during the February episode. “I never heard about the other things because, back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with. So in retrospect, he was making a plea deal and admitting one thing — which is all he admitted to us — but it looks like he was being charged with a series of crimes, which we did not know.”
Friedle, meanwhile, expressed regret at attending Peck’s sentencing.
“We’re sitting in that courtroom on the wrong side of everything … The victim’s mother turned and said, ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn’t change what you did to my kid,’” he recalled. “I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.”
Friedle added: “We weren’t told the whole story, but it doesn’t change the fact that we did it. I still can’t get the words out to describe all of the things that I’m feeling inside of myself.”
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Quiet on Set directors Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz reacted to Strong and Friedle’s decision to address the situation on their podcast after previously being reached out to for comment.
“We reached out to everyone who wrote a letter of support [for Brian Peck] that we mentioned in the film — including Will and Rider. We didn’t hear back from them,” Schwartz told Us earlier this month. “So it was interesting to hear that they put out a podcast after our trailer was announced.”
Schwartz confirmed she listened to their response, adding, “I certainly learned a lot about what they had gone through, how they had seen Brian. It was interesting to see that they were using some of the same language that Drake would use to describe him. Will had also been in the courtroom and he used some of the very same language to describe how many people were there [as Drake did].”
Robertson, meanwhile, said they still had “a lot of questions” about the letters of support.
“Those questions are outstanding,” Robertson shared. “I think one wonders about the conditions under which they were written, if any pressure was exerted, who asked whom to write which letters and what rationale was offered. So we hope that we learn more in the coming weeks and months.”
In the final two installments of the documentary, which will air on Monday, March 18, Bell broke his silence for the first time about Peck’s abuse and the subsequent court hearing. He recalled seeing Peck’s packed side of the room during the sentencing.
“I get to the courthouse and it was the most unbelievable thing you have ever seen,” Bell recalled to the cameras. “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.”
The actor chose to address his statement to everyone in the room. “I looked at all of them and I just said, ‘How dare you. 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 are defending violating me and doing unspeakable acts and crimes. And that is what I will remember,'” he concluded.
Strong and Friedle have not addressed the revelation that Bell was the then-unnamed child star in Peck’s case. They acknowledged in their February podcast episode that neither of them have remained in contact with Peck.
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV airs on Investigation Discovery Sunday, March 17, and Monday, March 18, at 9 p.m. ET.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
