Former Drake & Josh costars Drake Bell and Josh Peck finally caught up about their Nickelodeon days.
On Monday’s (March 24) episode of Peck and Ben Soffer’s The Good Guys Podcast, the duo shared their thoughts on last year’s Investigation Discovery series Quiet on Set. In the documentary, Bell revealed he was sexually abused at age 15 by his Nickelodeon dialogue coach, Brian Peck (no relation to Josh). In 2004, the offender pleaded no contest and got 16 months in prison, though Bell wasn’t identified as the victim at that time.
“You know what the show means to everyone. You know that the moments that were great were great, and we were incredibly lucky to get to do this thing that we loved,” Peck said around the 58-minute mark of the video below.
“But there’s also the truth of everything you went through and everything that was an experience for a kid that was unacceptable in so many ways and you’ve got to wrestle with this,” he continued. “I remember people would ask me about the show, and I would say, ‘Well, I lost a hundred pounds and had to get sober at 21. Did I seem happy?’ Like, it’s a bit of a sign.”
Bell replied that his friends who watched Quiet on Set decided they wouldn’t watch Drake & Josh reruns anymore.
“That was where I actually was comfortable and happy and stoked and I’m very proud of what we did and I loved the show,” Bell shared, mentioning he recently revisited episodes with a friend who’d never seen it.
Drake & Josh ran for four seasons from 2004 to 2007, coming years after Bell and Peck first worked together on The Amanda Show.
Bell, who’s shown interest in rebooting Drake & Josh, recently told People that sharing his sexual abuse trauma was like a “weight lifted.”
“It’s a roller coaster of emotions,” he told the publication. “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.”
