After The Cast Of “Boy Meets World” Expressed Their “Guilt” And “Shame” For Supporting Dialect Coach Brian Peck Amid Abuse Allegations, Drake Bell Has Come Forward As The Alleged Victim

Peck, then 43, was working as a dialect coach for the 15-year-old actor, and was teaching him at his home when the offenses are said to have taken place.

He was arrested after the boy’s parents reported him to the police and court documents reveal that Peck was originally charged with 11 counts, including lewd act upon a child, sodomy of a person under 16, attempted sodomy of a person under 16, sexual penetration by a foreign object, four counts of oral copulation of a person under 16, oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance, sending harmful matter, and using a minor for sex acts. 

He ultimately pleaded “no contest” to just two counts: lewd act against a child, and oral copulation. While the court found him guilty of both, the remaining counts were dismissed. 

An accompanying press release reads: “Former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell will be sharing publicly, for the first time, the story of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, his former dialogue coach who was convicted in 2004 for his crimes against Drake and ordered to register as a sex offender.”

In the episode, stars Rider Strong and Will Friedle admitted to feeling “shame” and “guilt” for supporting Peck amid his court case as they recalled the friendship that Peck struck up with them when he started working on the ABC sitcom back in 1997

Peck has not responded to any of Rider and Will’s claims in the podcast episode.

Rider was just 16 years old when he first met Peck, Will was 19, and Peck was 37. Despite the large age gap, it was alleged that Peck would attend parties and social events with Rider while simultaneously forging a close friendship with Will, and eventually became “part of their most trusted inner circle.”

The two men and their cohost, Danielle Fishel, claimed that Peck would impress his young colleagues by name-dropping all of the famous people he knew and had worked with over the years, and said that he would be incredibly charming and funny as he repeatedly joined them for lunch on set.

The stars clarified that they “had no idea” about all of the counts that Peck was initially charged with, and only knew about the two he pleaded no contest to.

Rider explained: “He only admitted to one thing but he was charged originally with a bunch of things. I never heard about the other things because, back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with.”

Rider then speculated that Peck had actually made a “plea deal” by admitting to some but not all of the charges, saying: “It looks like he was being charged with a series of crimes, which we did not know, and that’s really disturbing.”

And reflecting on the moment that Peck allegedly called on him for support, Will claimed: "He called me to his house, which I’d been to maybe twice so that alone was weird, and he sat me down. He said to me: ‘Hey, this is what’s happening, but this is what happened.’ He was crying the whole time. We’d just done this film together and he’d got me this role.”

“The story makes complete sense — the way that he was saying it,” Will added, before poignantly adding: “I look back on it now and it makes me want to cry that I was ever that naive.”

Rider was apparently told a similar story, with the star alleging: “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.’”

Peck allegedly then asked Will, Rider, and several other actors that he knew to go and support him in court, which they did.

Will recalled: “We’re then sitting in that courtroom, on the wrong side of everything, of course having no idea. It was filled with child actors, to the point that the victim’s mother turned around and said: ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you, and it doesn’t change what you did to my kid.’”

“I just sat there wanting to die,” Will continued. “I was like: ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.”

Peck has been working steadily in the acting world since his release from prison, and Rider even recalled bumping into him at a showbiz party seven years ago.

In 2021, Drake was charged with attempted endangering of children and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. Drake initially pleaded not guilty, but later agreed to a plea deal and said that he was guilty of both charges.

His alleged victim read out a lengthy victim impact statement ahead of his sentencing, where she claimed that Drake had groomed her from the age of 12 before sexually assaulting her in 2017, when she was 15 years old and he was 31. 

Her statement read: “I started off as a fan of him. I was definitely one of his biggest fans. Everyone who knew me as a child knew that he was a hero to me. I would have done anything for him. When I was 11, I learned that my aunt had a mutual friend who knew the defendant. [That] led to my aunt taking me to meet him for the first time in 2014 when I was 12.”

The alleged victim went on to say that after their first meeting, she began to frequently spend time with Drake between the ages of 12 and 15, and that they would also speak online.

Drake ended up being sentenced to two years probation and 200 hours of community service in July 2021, and he acknowledged that his “conduct” was “wrong.”

He added to the judge in a statement: "I'm sorry that the victim was harmed in any way, but that was obviously not my intention. I have taken this matter very, very seriously. And again, I just want to apologize to her and anyone else who may have been affected by my actions."