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 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.