Drake Bell and Josh Peck starred together on the Nickelodeon show for four seasons
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| Josh Peck and Drake Bell on 'Drake & Josh' (left); Josh Peck and Drake Bell recording 'Good Guys' (right). Photo: Nickelodeon; Courtesy of Dear Media / Good Guys |
Drake Bell and Josh Peck, who starred together in hit Nickelodeon comedy series Drake & Josh, are reuniting for the first time since the documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV premiered in spring 2024 on Investigation Discovery/Max to talk about their time on the show, their lives as child stardom and the bombshells the documentary revealed.
In a preview of the March 24 episode of Josh's Good Guys podcast shared by People, which he hosts alongside Ben Soffer, Josh and Bell opened up about their time working together on Drake & Josh and what it was like to be Nickelodeon child stars.
Soffer, 32, and producer Olivia Meade spoke on the podcast about the “completely eye-opening” experience of watching Quiet on Set. Soffer said it “never at all clicked” that Josh and Bell, both 38, were also kids.
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| Drake Bell recording the 'Good Guys' podcast. Courtesy of Dear Media / Good Guys |
“You're not an adult, but you're being treated like an adult and you're with adults,” Soffer said. Meade added, “I can’t imagine losing those formative years, or giving such responsibility and pressure at that age when you are just beginning to figure out bits and pieces of who you are and how you interact with other people.”
Josh said it’s complicated because the show is beloved by fans who grew up watching it but was hard for him to go through. He explained, “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.”
“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 said. “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."
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| LOS ANGELES, CA - APRIL 17: Actor Josh Peck (L) and Drake Bell (R) attend Drake Bell's album release party for "Ready Steady Go!" at Mixology101 & Planet Dailies on April 17, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic |
Drake & Josh premiered in 2004 and ran for four seasons on Nickelodeon. Bell and Josh played stepbrothers (who shared the same first names as the actors playing them), with Miranda Cosgrove as Drake’s younger sister. Before the show, Josh and Bell also starred together on the network's The Amanda Show alongside Amanda Bynes.
In Quiet on Set, Bell talked about being sexually assaulted by Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck (no relation to Josh) when he was 15. Brian pleaded no contest to a charge of oral copulation with a minor under 16 and performing a lewd act with a 14- or 15-year-old in connection with the case. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison and was mandated to register as a sex offender. At the time, Bell was not revealed as his victim.
Speaking to People on March 17, Bell revealed that the documentary airing was “a really nice weight lifted.”
“It's a roller coaster of emotions,” he said. “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.”
The new episode of Good Guys premieres Monday, March 24. The second half of Bell’s interview will appear in the Thursday, March 27, episode.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
From People:
Drake Bell Says Secret of Brian Peck Abuse Hurt His Friendship with Drake & Josh Costar Josh Peck
Bell said his hair was literally falling out from the stress, but he never confided in his costar
- Drake Bell and Josh Peck reunited on Peck’s Good Guys podcast to talk about their time as child stars on Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh in the 2000s
- Bell revealed in the 2024 docuseries Quiet on Set that he had been abused by Brian Peck (no relation) when he and Josh Peck worked on The Amanda Show in 1999
- Because Josh Peck didn’t know about the abuse or the investigation into it, while Bell was dealing with the fallout, he thought his costar had decided to stop being his friend
Drake Bell and Josh Peck are opening up about their decades-long relationship, and how it was ultimately shaped by the abuse Bell suffered as a child star.
On the March 24 episode of Peck’s Good Guys podcast, which he hosts with Ben Soffer, the former Drake & Josh costars talked openly about their relationship and how their friendship shifted over the years. The podcast marked the first time the pair have reunited since the 2024 Quiet on Set documentary premiered; in the documentary, Bell shared publicly for the first time that he had been abused by Brian Peck (no relation to Josh) who had worked with him as a dialogue coach on The Amanda Show.
Bell and Josh Peck, both 38, also first met on The Amanda Show. “We didn't get along at first, but I thought you were so cool, and I really wanted you to like me,” Peck remembered. “And then, thankfully, we had this shared love of old-school comedy and sitcoms and great television. And so once you realized that I was kind of funny and I liked people who liked funny, we were suddenly inseparable.”
“And it felt like we had this bond and then Drake & Josh started,” he added of their 2004 series. But the actor said that watching Quiet on Set, he realized he never knew all the things Bell was going through.
Bell agreed and explained how he felt his accusations about Brian — which were at first a secret — changed their relationship. “The big break between Drake & Josh and Amanda Show is when I told my mom what was going on,” Bell explained. “And then when we shot the pilot, we were in the middle of the investigation, but nobody had known anything because Brian hadn't been arrested.”
The Drake & Josh pilot was shooting on the same set The Amanda Show filmed on — where Brian abused Bell. The actor said it was devastating to have “the monster” in his “safe place.”
“That’s the only place I feel comfortable, when I get to set and hang out with you guys, and we go goof around and put on our masks and wigs and makeup and make people laugh and slide around and get dirty,” Bell explained. And though Brian didn’t work on Drake & Josh, he came and visited the set while they were filming the pilot.
“I know that this guy's about to get arrested,” Bell said. “I know that s--- is about to hit the fan, and nobody in here knows it.”
Peck asked if his costar was “furious” that none of the adults on set were protecting him. Bell said that at the time he wasn’t because even though he was 14, he wanted to be “seen as an adult.” But now that he is an adult and a father, it’s been “unbelievably illuminating” and “really confusing” to think about how no adult stepped up.
But at the time, Peck had no idea any of this was going on and thought Bell had just decided he didn’t like him anymore. “Until you sort of shared with me what was happening, I was just looking at it through the prism of a 14-year-old's brain going like, ‘He doesn't want much to do with me.’ ” Watching the documentary now, “so much was revealed” to him for the first time, Peck said.
Bell said that he was so worried about how the investigation into Brian would affect Drake & Josh. He wondered, “Is this going to hurt our show? When this drops, is Josh going to look at me and be like, ‘Bro, you took our dream away?’ Are we going to lose our show?” Bell admitted he was so stressed he began losing his hair.
Peck said that even for a child actor "under the most perfect circumstance," he thinks the job is "probably too much pressure for one to handle at that age.” He added that he eventually felt like he and Bell started to rebuild their friendship later on in Drake & Josh, and in retrospect, it was around the time Brian went to jail.
In 2004, Brian pleaded no contest to a charge of oral copulation with a minor under 16 and performing a lewd act with a 14- or 15-year-old in connection with the case. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison and was mandated to register as a sex offender. After serving his sentence, Peck was released from prison in 2005.
Peck said he remembered asking Bell at one point if he still talked to Brian. “And you just looked at me like, ‘No. Brian's a really bad guy.’ And I remember thinking, ‘Gotcha.’ And it was all that I needed to know.”
Drake & Josh ultimately ran for four seasons, from 2004 to 2007.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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From USA Today Entertainment:
Drake Bell and Josh Peck break silence on friendship status, Nickelodeon trauma
Drake and Josh are back together again.
Drake Bell sat down with his former "Drake & Josh" co-star Josh Peck in an episode of the "Good Guys" podcast released Monday for a candid discussion about their friendship and the Investigation Discovery documentary series "Quiet on Set."
Bell and Peck began working together when they were co-stars on the Nickelodeon comedy series "The Amanda Show," which led them to be paired for their own Nickelodeon series "Drake & Josh" in 2004.
"Quiet on Set," which aired last year, prompted calls for better protections for child actors after revealing stories of alleged misconduct at Nickelodeon. The biggest revelation was Bell's allegation that dialogue coach Brian Peck, who he worked with on "The Amanda Show," sexually assaulted him when he was 15. Bell also revealed he participated in an investigation leading to Brian Peck's arrest on a charge of lewd acts with a child. He was convicted in 2004.
Josh Peck reveals Drake Bell told him his alleged abuser was 'a really bad guy'
Peck told Bell on the podcast that he "can't even imagine" what he went through, as he described in "Quiet on Set."
"I didn't know any of this at 14, and in watching the documentary, at 38, as a father, as a grown-up, so much was revealed to me," Peck said. Though he said he wasn't aware of details at the time, Peck recalled Bell once telling him that he doesn't talk to Brian Peck anymore because he's a "really bad guy."
"I remember thinking, 'Gotcha,' and it was all that I needed to know," Peck said. "I didn't know anything more than that, but I was like, 'That's clear.'"
Bell and Josh Peck, no relation to Brian Peck, have rarely appeared together since "Drake & Josh" ended in 2007. The two had also previously revealed a rift in their relationship, with Peck saying in 2022 that they are not friends.
Are Drake Bell and Josh Peck friends? Actors open up about their relationship
Reflecting on the evolution of their relationship, Peck said he and Bell became "inseparable" after they started working together on "The Amanda Show" but said that sometime after their own show "Drake & Josh" began, there started to be a "separation" between them.
"I was just looking at it through the prism of a 14-year-old's brain going, 'Ah, he doesn't want much to do with me,'" Peck recalled.
Drake Bell alleges 'extensive,' 'brutal' sexual abuse by Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck
But Bell indicated the distance that developed was related to the situation with Brian Peck.
He said that that when the pilot for "Drake & Josh" was shot, an investigation into Brian Peck's alleged sexual abuse was underway, but his colleagues were unaware because no arrest had been made yet. He said this knowledge was always in the back of his mind during this period when he and Josh Peck should have been bonding as partners.
"I had to come back to working with my partner going, 'I've got all this stuff that nobody knows about that's going on. Is this going to hurt our show? When this drops, is Josh going to look at me and be like, Bro, you took our dream away. Are we going to lose our show?'" Bell said.
At a certain point, though, Peck said he felt the friendship with Bell started "coming back." Bell summed up their relationship as having its ups and downs, saying there were "times when we hung out a lot and were close" and times when they weren't.
Drake Bell says Josh Peck 'reached out' after Brian Peck sex abuse allegations: 'It's been very sensitive'
"When you are working with somebody every day, day in and day out, and you're going through stuff at home ... they come out with the person," Bell said, adding, "I think we suffered the brunt of that a bit."
Peck, who was not interviewed in "Quiet on Set," also slammed the "lack of protection" that existed for child actors at the time. Without getting into details, he recalled dealing with "tyrannical bosses" and "people acting inappropriately" on sets, thinking, "I don't know if that'd be cool anywhere else but here."
The second part of Bell and Peck's conversation will air on Thursday. The first part of their chat ended with Bell tearing up while reminiscing about how much he loved working on "Drake & Josh" and stressing that fans should not feel the need to avoid rewatching the show in light of the "Quiet on Set" allegations. "I'm very proud of what we did," he said.
Bell and Peck previously went through a rough patch in their relationship after Bell shared in 2017 that he was hurt to have not been invited to Peck's wedding. Bell tweeted at the time that "ties are officially cut." Peck later said on the "BFFs" podcast that he didn't invite Bell because they're "not really" friends and had not stayed in touch since working together.
The podcast did not delve into Bell's own legal issues after the actor pleaded guilty to child endangerment charges in 2021. At the time, a woman accused Bell of grooming her beginning when she was 12 and exchanging sexual messages with her. He has denied sending explicit photos to the alleged victim and said he was unaware of her age.
In a statement shared on social media last year after "Quiet on Set" aired, Josh Peck said he had reached out to Bell privately and expressed his support "for the survivors who were brave enough to share their stories of emotional and physical abuse on Nickelodeon sets with the world."
"Children should be protected," he wrote. "Reliving this publicly is incredibly difficult, but I hope it can bring healing for the victims and their families as well as necessary change to our industry."
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Originally published: March 22, 2025.
Additional source: The Hollywood Reporter.
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