Actor Drake Bell told his former Nickelodeon co-star Josh Peck that he worried about the fate of their friendship after he reported allegations of child abuse during their time on “Drake & Josh.”
The former child stars, who reunited for the first time in nearly 20 years for an episode of Peck’s podcast, “Good Guys,” reflected on the revelations made in last year’s docuseries “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.”
The Investigative Discovery series, which aired in March 2024, featured interviews with several actors and former child stars who alleged abuse, inappropriate behavior and a toxic work environment while appearing on some Nickelodeon shows.
It was the first time Bell publicly addressed his accusations of child sexual abuse against Nick dialogue coach Brian Peck (no relation to Josh Peck), who was arrested in 2003 and charged with “lewd acts with a child,” according to a news release from the Los Angeles Police Department. The release said Brian Peck had molested an unidentified minor he had worked with over a period of six months.
After he pleaded no contest, Brian Peck was convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a 14- or 15-year-old child and oral copulation with a minor under 16, according to a case summ from Los Angeles County Superior Court. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
Brian Peck was “walking around set” during the filming of the show’s pilot as the investigation was happening, Bell said in the podcast episode.
“Where I felt most comfortable, where I was the happiest, was when I was on set with you guys,” Bell told Josh Peck. “And the worst part was, every day I got there, the monster was there.”
Attempts to reach Brian Peck for comment were unsuccessful on Monday.
At the time the “Drake & Josh” pilot was being shot, Bell said he agonized about whether the situation would negatively impact the show’s future. He was afraid the investigation would go public.
“When this drops, is Josh going to look at me and be like, ‘Bro, you took our dream away?’ … Like, are we going to lose our show?” Bell said as he recounted his stress. “Dude, I was losing my hair, like I had these giant scabs on my head.”
“Drake & Josh,” in which the two played stepbrothers and polar opposites, ended in 2007. But Bell’s identity in Brian Peck’s case wasn’t revealed until the the docuseries debuted in 2024.
Josh Peck previously said that he had reached out to Bell privately in the days after “Quiet on Set” was released.
When they caught up on the podcast episode, Josh Peck recounted the moment he noticed Brian Peck had suddenly disappeared from set.
He said he “had a feeling something happened,” and recalled asking Bell one day whether he still spoke to Brian Peck, to which Bell had replied, “No, Brian’s a really bad guy.”
But it wasn’t until the docuseries came out that Josh Peck said he learned the full extent of what his co-star went through.
“In watching the document at 38, as a father, as a grown-up, so much was revealed to me of what you had to go through,” Josh Peck said. “I can’t even imagine that.”
He later said working as a child actor during that time, “there were so many things that you would see on set in a day and just go, ‘I don’t know if that’d be cool anywhere else but here.’”
“And so when you had tyrannical bosses or just people acting inappropriately,” he continued. “I think the assumption was, in Hollywood, like this was just kind of part of it.’”
