Drake Bell is speaking out for the first time since pleading guilty to two charges of endangering children and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
The “Drake & Josh” star took to Instagram on September 16 to share his side of the story and set the record straight.
For those not in the loop, the actor was arrested in June by Ohio Police for attempted endangerment of a child and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
The arrest was for an “incident” that happened on December 1, 2017. Drake reportedly had a conversation with a minor before a concert of his in Cleveland that evening.
The conversation reportedly turned sexual at certain points, this according to reports from Fox 8 News.
The minor was apparently a Canadian resident, and she waited until she got back north of the border to report the crime. The victim reported the crime to local Canadian authorities in 2018. According to “The Hill”, the actor was in contact with the alleged victim prior to their December 2017 meeting.
In July, Drake was sentenced to two years’ probation by an Ohio judge after pleading guilty to criminal charges involving a minor.
The former Nickelodeon star is now speaking his truth.
He started out by saying, “Hi, I’m Drake Bell, not Drake Campana. A lot of the news you’ve been hearing, most of the news you’ve heard recently is entirely false and wrong, and I feel that you deserve and I owe you an explanation.”
“I didn’t change my name. Although I would love to. I’ve never moved to Mexico, I’ve never been a resident or a citizen of Mexico. I don’t have a Mexican passport. I didn’t get arrested, I didn’t go to jail,” he said. “I know this has moved very quickly for you, but for me it’s been a three-year thorough investigation into every false claim that has been made.”
Court Appearance!
He continued, “It’s not me telling you the claims are false, but the state of Ohio has proven the claims to be false. If these claims were remotely true, my situation would be very different. I would not be here at home with my wife and my son.”
Drake went on to say with everything being said he isn’t ‘perfect’ and that he ‘made mistakes.’
See Drake Tell His Side Of The Story!
View this post on Instagram
He then goes on to detail the incident with the underage fan.
“That’s what I pled guilty to. It was reckless and irresponsible text messages,” he admitted. “I want to make clear there were no sexual images, nothing physical between me and this individual. I was not charged with anything physical. I was not charged with disseminating photographs or images or anything like that. This is strictly over text messages.”
He closed out saying, “Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.”
