Drake Bell told People magazine that a weight has been lifted, one year after the airing of ID Discovery’s “Quiet on Set.” The documentary series featured Bell going public for the first time about being sexually assaulted as a teenager by his Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck. It was perhaps the biggest bombshell to emerge from “Quiet on Set,” which also detailed claims of misconduct behind the scenes at Nickelodeon during the 1990s and early 2000s.
“It’s been a really nice weight lifted,” Bell said while marking the one-year anniversary of “Quiet on Set’s” debut. “It’s a roller coaster of emotions. I don’t want to sugarcoat it and make the message, ‘Hey, all you got to do is just tell somebody and get your story out and when you wake up the next day, it’s going to be gone and everything’s going to be fine and you’re going to walk through life without any pain or sorrow or sadness!’ It’s always going to be there, but it’s a lot nicer getting support.”
Peck worked on the Nickelodeon shows “All That” and “The Amanda Show” in the late ’90s and early 2000s, the latter of which starred Bell before he went on to headline his own series “Drake & Josh” on the network. In 2003, Peck, 43 at the time, was arrested on 11 charges — including sodomy, lewd act upon a child 14 or 15 by a person 10 years older, and oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance — but the victim was not named until Bell stepped forward.
“It’s really great to have experiences now where, instead of walking through the airport and having people come up and ask for a selfie, they’re coming up and sharing their stories and saying, ‘I watched your documentary and after your interview, I opened up to my husband. It’s something I’ve never told anybody,’” Bell told People. “I didn’t expect to have that kind of impact on people.”
During Peck’s 2004 trial, many actors such as James Marsden, Taran Killam and ‘Boy Meets World’ stars Will Friedle and Rider Strong wrote letters of support in his defense. Peck heard from some of these people over the last year, who reached out to tell him: “I was completely lied to and bamboozled by this person, and it was a totally different story that was told to me. I would’ve never written that letter. I’m so ashamed.”
“It’s nice to hear those kinds of things,” Bell said about being believed.
Bell added it’s still somewhat difficult to wrap his head around the fact that “everybody knows my secrets,” but he has gratitude to the fans who support him.
Bell later added about the last year, “Hearing other people’s stories in group therapy and thinking to yourself, ‘Oh, wow, that was a really heavy story. That’s what you’ve experienced in your life, maybe I feel a little comfortable to share my story and then maybe I can empathize with others.’ Because when you go through something like this, one of the main things is you’re alone. But then you hear these other stories and you’re like, ‘I’m not the only one.”
After the release of “Quiet on Set,” a spokesperson for Nickelodeon gave the following statement to Variety regarding Bell: “Now that Drake Bell has disclosed his identity as the plaintiff in the 2004 case, we are dismayed and saddened to learn of the trauma he has endured, and we commend and support the strength required to come forward.”
Bell later said on an episode of “The Sarah Fraser Show” podcast that the network’s reaction to his story was “a really well-tailored response by probably some big attorney in Hollywood… I find it pretty empty, their responses, because, I mean, they still show our shows, they still put our shows on. And I have to pay for my own therapy, I have to figure out what — I mean if there was anything, if there was any truth behind them actually caring, there would be something more than quotes on a page by obviously a legal representative telling them exactly how to tailor a response.”
Head over to People magazine’s website to read more from Bell’s latest interview.
