Drake Bell Admits The Real Reason Why He Pled Guilty To Sexual Child Endangerment Charges

Drake Bell is addressing the sexual child endangerment charges he faced in 2021, weeks after he came forward as a sexual assault victim.

As The Blast reported, the ‘Drake & Josh’ star revealed he was sexually assaulted by Brian Peck, a former dialogue coach at Nickelodeon. He told his story for the first time in the ‘Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV’ docuseries.

Shortly thereafter, many slammed Bell as he pled guilty to sexual child endangerment charges a few years ago.

Now, he is setting the record straight.

In 2021, Drake Bell pleaded guilty to felony attempted child endangerment and a misdemeanor charge of disseminating harmful material to a juvenile and was sentenced to two years of probation.

Prosecutors said there was a 15-year-old girl who said there was an incident that occurred in 2017. Bell had several message conversations with the accuser in the months leading up to the alleged incident, some of which were deemed inappropriate.

Bell clarified what happened in a recent ‘TODAY’ show interview.

While Bell claims there was no physical incident that occurred, he did admit to talking to the underage girl over messages.

“No, there was no incident that happened,” Bell said during the interview. “And thankfully, through a very long and exhausting investigation, which went into subpoenaing my social media messages and everything that I’ve ever sent to anyone in my cell phone and computers, and finally, we had witnesses come forward that were there, and were witnesses to the entire events that occurred at the concert.”

“And it was able to come out that what had been alleged didn’t occur,” he added. “Nothing happened physically. Nothing happened in person or anything like that.”

After clarifying that “nothing happened physically,” Bell admitted to talking to the female via message.

“I had been, in the past, exchanging messages with somebody who I got messages from through a DM,” he said. “I thought she was 19, 20, and if you look at the social media, her profile, and I mean I don’t want to say … this is a difficult subject, but everything was indicating that this is somebody that I could converse with.”

Bell later admitted they were “inappropriate messages.” “It got to a place where there were some messages that shouldn’t have been exchanged, and that’s why I pled guilty.”

“But once the age was revealed, that’s why I stopped communication,” he clarified. “I blocked her on everything and then I think from the cutting off communication and the blocking, I think that kind of snowballed into what it became.”

The actor faced backlash from many because he pled guilty to doing something with a younger girl but then came out as a victim of sexual assault.

“Of course, I think there’s a picture that a lot of people are painting of a cycle of abuse. ‘Oh, well, he’s doing what he did to someone else what had been done to him.’”

When asked, “That’s not right?” Bell responded, “This is difficult because I don’t want to get emotional about it, but I pleaded guilty to some text messages with somebody that I didn’t know—someone I wasn’t aware of their age. It was stupid.”

“It was something I shouldn’t have done. I should have never engaged with anybody online. Even if I knew what their age was,” he continued. “Absolutely should not have happened.”

“But it’s a very different parallel to make between that and what I endured at 14 years old,” he clarified. “The physical abuse that I went through, the things that Brian [Peck] had done to me, and how dark it got.”

Bell said he didn’t go into detail in the documentary because “it’s very difficult” and “unspeakable.”

“I can’t tell you what he did to me and this be aired on national television.”

As The Blast reported, in the 'Quiet On Set' docuseries, Drake Bell came forward for the first time as the one who accused Brian Peck of sexual assault.

“[Brian Peck] pretty much worked his way into every aspect of my life,” Bell said of the former Nickelodeon dialogue coach. “I knew that my life was going to be absolutely going to be completely different from that point on."

“I was sleeping on the couch where I would usually sleep, and I woke up to him, I opened my eyes, I woke up, and he was sexually assaulting me, and I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or how to react, and I had no idea how to get out of the situation,” Bell said in the docuseries.

Adding, “You know, anytime I had an audition or anytime I needed to work on dialogue or anything, I somehow ended up back at Brian’s house, and it just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and I was just trapped. I had no way out. The abuse was extensive and it got pretty brutal.”

Drake Bell's story can be heard in the new docuseries, 'Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV,' now streaming on MAX.