This article mentions allegations of child sex abuse and grooming.
Earlier this month, ID docuseries Quiet on Set delved into the support that convicted child sex offender Brian Peck received during his 2004 legal trial.
Actor and dialogue coach Brian was 43 when he was found guilty of two counts of child sex abuse against a young Nickelodeon actor. He was originally charged with 11 counts pertaining to acts against the child actor.
Court documents revealed that Brian was “coaching the victim” at his house when the offenses took place. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
In the four-part series, former Nickelodeon child star Drake Bell came forward as Brian’s alleged victim. He said, “I was sleeping on the couch where I usually sleep, and I woke up to him... He was sexually assaulting me. And I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or how to react.”
In the docuseries, Drake also addressed his 2021 legal trial, where he was charged with attempted endangering of children and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. He was sentenced to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to both charges. In the docuseries, Drake holds himself accountable and details spending years in therapy and treatment.
Quiet on Set also revealed that Brian, who was extremely popular and well-connected, had received support from several celebrities amid his legal trial.
These celebrities included James Marsden, Taran Killam, Twin Peaks actor Kimmy Robertson, Growing Pains actors Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns, Amanda Show crew members Rich and Beth Correll, American Horror Story actor Ron Melendez, X-Men producer Tom DeSanto, and Boy Meets World actors Will Friedle and Rider Strong.
An alleged excerpt from James’s letter was shown in the docuseries. It read, “I assure you, what Brian has been through in the last year is the suffering of a hundred men.” Meanwhile, Taran allegedly said in his letter, “I have seen the affects this situations has had on Brian and I know for a fact that he regrets any mistakes made.”
Late actor Alan Thicke allegedly wrote that Brian “was never inappropriate,” while Kimmy purportedly wrote: “I believe with all my heart that Brian was pressured and pushed beyond belief before he caved in.”
The docuseries notes that it’s unclear exactly what these celebrities were told about Brian’s abuse. Joanna provided a follow-up statement to her letter of support claiming: “I have now learned that my letter of support was based on complete misinformation. Knowing what I know now, I never would have written the letter.”
Similarly, Will and Rider — who were 27 and 24 respectively when Brian was arrested — claimed they were “misled” as they addressed their letters of support earlier this year on an
Claiming that Brian had managed to convince them that he was the victim in the case, Will recalled: “My initial instinct was: Well, he’s my friend, it can’t be, it has to be the other person’s fault. The story makes complete sense — the way that he was saying it… I look back on it now, and it makes me want to cry that I was ever that naive.”
Rider added, “He didn’t say that nothing had happened. By the time we heard about the case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of: ‘I did this thing, I am guilty, I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m the victim of jailbait.’”
Drake fired back at Will and Rider earlier this month, accusing them of trying to save face by addressing their letters publicly ahead of the release of the Quiet on Set docuseries.
“Will was 27 years old and Brian told him what he did many people turned away and said no I won’t write a letter but they did,” he wrote in response to an Instagram comment. “Will was not manipulated. Brian admitted it to him and he wrote the letter anyway. Then he worked with me on many many episodes of spider man years later and never said a word to me about it.”
“This is because they were told there letters are going to be made public. Everyone thought the letters would be sealed forever and no one would ever see them. This is their publicist telling them how to get ahead of the story,” he added.
And now, Drake has claimed that he’s not received any apologies from the celebrities who supported Brian amid his trial.
Appearing on The Sarah Fraser Show podcast on March 22, Drake said, “I haven’t gotten an apology, or a sorry, from anybody that had written letters or was involved in supporting him at all.”
Drake did acknowledge that Tom DeSanto has released a statement to People claiming he wrote his letter “based on incomplete information.” It reads, “My decisions at the time were based on incomplete information given to me, and I lacked full awareness of the gravity of the accusations. With the knowledge and understanding I possess today, I want to personally apologize to Drake and his family and emphatically state that had I been fully informed of all the accusations, my support would have been absolutely withheld.”
Noting that he didn’t know about the letters until last year, Drake said, “I learned that later, I mean, there were multiple people that had supported him that went on to work on Drake & Josh.”
“I worked with these people every day, and I thought they were my friends. They were people in positions of power, that they were my bosses. They were directors, they were producers. It was a situation where I thought I was surrounded by, I thought I was safe. I thought, OK, I thought I got rid of, the cancer has been carved out, we’re better now,” he continued.
“And I had no idea that for 4 years, I was working alongside people who had supported him, and probably in the back of their mind were thinking of me in a certain way, and I thought they were my friends,” he added.
Drake also noted that it was “re-traumatizing” learning about the letters years after the trial.
“It was totally re-traumatizing to later get these letters, which I just got last year,” he said. “Every letter I turned, it broke my heart when I would see the name at the end of the letter and go, ‘What? We worked together. I thought that we were friends.’”
You can listen to Drake’s full appearance on The Sarah Fraser Show podcast here.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.