Drake Bell speaks out on suffering sexual abuse at 15

NME

The former child star Drake Bell is set to speak publicly about allegedly being a victim of sexual abuse on the Nickelodeon series The Amanda Show.

Bell will appear on the upcoming Discovery show Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV, which airs later this month, to say that he was abused by Brian Peck, a dialogue coach who worked on the show.

Bell starred on The Amanda Show on the network from 1999 to 2002, before landing his own show, Drake & Josh, in 2004.

Peck was arrested in August 2003 on over a dozen charges relating to sexual abuse involving an unnamed minor. In 2004, he pleaded no contest to performing a lewd act with a 14- or 15-year-old, and to oral copulation with a minor under 16. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison and forced to register as a sex offender.

Bell has not yet spelt out the nature of the abuse that he suffered, and the identities of Peck’s victims remain unknown.

Quiet On Set is a four-part series that will seek to expose the toxic work conditions on children’s television in the 1990s and 2000s. It will air on March 17 and 18 on Investigation Discovery.

In a press statement from the channel, they have said: “The clip reveals that former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell will be sharing publicly, for the first time, the story of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, his former dialogue coach who was convicted in 2004 for his crimes against Drake and ordered to register as a sex offender.”

In April last year, Bell was found safe after having been reported “missing and endangered” by the Daytona Beach Police Department in Florida.

In July 2021, Bell was sentenced to two years’ probation and 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to charges of attempted child endangerment and disseminating harmful material to children. The charges related to a girl who had met him online and accused him of sending messages that were sexual in nature when she was 15 years old.

In a statement prior to the sentence, Bell said: “I’m sorry that the victim was harmed in any way, but that was obviously not my intention. I have taken this matter very, very seriously. And again, I just want to apologise to her and anyone else who may have been affected by my actions.”

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