Original subtitles

In January 2004,

Dan Schneider launches his next big show.

Nickelodeon presents Drake & Josh,

premiering January 11th.

It's one that would go on to establish

the next generation of Nick stars.

He's gonna be my...

Hug me, brother!

The hit Nickelodeon show, Drake & Josh.

If you have a tween at home,

you're probably familiar with the Nickelodeon show,

Drake & Josh.

Nickelodeon star, Drake Bell,

is a multi-talented singer, writer and actor.

I just released this single,

it's number one on the rock charts right now in Mexico.

We want Drake! We want Drake!

He's beautiful.

You killed it, brother.

Thank you, man. Thank you so much.

But it was the lead up to this premier of Drake and Josh

that marked one of the darkest chapters in this story.

Dialogue coach, Brian Peck, is arrested.

We were still in shock of the announcement

that Brian will no longer be working with us.

We were like, "What happened?"

And when this is announced,

it is said that these charges are related to a child actor.

It certainly has all of the ingredients

for huge scandal.

But it wasn't.

My name is Drake Bell,

and I came here today to tell my story.

Have you ever told your story publicly before?

I have never told my story publicly.

No.

I started acting when I was five years old.

My mom and my dad were going through divorce,

and my dad was looking for something

to do with his son.

I love to make people laugh.

It was just drawn to old movies,

anything black and white.

I Love Lucy andAbbott and Costello

and Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin

and the Marx Brothers.

I saw a magazine called the parenting magazine,

I started shuffling through it and I saw an advertisement for

the Kids Hollywood Connection.

And I thought, "Whoa, that's something

that Drake could do.

Robin, my ex-wife, she said, "Oh, that's great."

And I started taking him to auditions.

Then got a manager and an agent,

and then we were off.

Pop, he knows everything.

Wouldn't it be fun to fly?

the candy bar.

No,.

Me just being a kid,

and my dad not coming from having any background it,

we were sort of just flying by the seat of our pants.

He started getting some commercials

and doing things like that.

You can't catch all 150 Pokemon by yourself.

So close.

Then we just continued

the everyday picking him up at 3:30 at school.

Go out, audition,

wouldn't get home until 10:00, 11:00 at night.

Go back, do the same thing the next day.

Him and I just became so close

that it was like it was just natural.

And he loved it.

As I grew older,

I did more guest spots on TV shows in the late 90s.

He'd booked Home Improvement.

And Drake came on as a little construction guy.

Thank you for my swing set, Mr. Tool Man.

He also did an episode of Seinfeld,

where George Costanza is

wanting this video machine,

and Drake's in there playing it.

Thanks a lot.

Eh, beat it, punk.

And then he got the role forJerry Maguire.

As he's walking down the hall,

he turns back to Tom Cruise

and he's supposed to flip him off.

But Drake wouldn't even use his middle finger.

He used the ring finger.

If you watch the movie, you'll see that.

But you gotta look real close.

And the goal, eventually, you know, became to

get on a TV show and...

be a series regular somehow, someway.

I don't believe this.

Look at this, Jill.

You see, Jill, a regular student

wouldn't give this discarded piece of rubbish a second glance...

Then, when we was 12,

an audition came up for The Amanda Show

on Nickelodeon.

So we're walking down the hallway of Paramount,

and Drake had just done an audition.

Dan Schneider comes out and says, "Hey, come here, Drake."

And he goes, "Amanda wants you on the show."

And then I got a call that I had booked the show,

and that was just the greatest experience ever.

I mean, I had been waiting for this moment

to be able to go somewhere every day

and do what I love.

And, you know, it's Nickelodeon,

so it's a kid's dream.

For the first season, it was great.

You know, we were at the Paramount Studios.

Any time those lights went up

and the camera started rolling,

it was just...

It was like time to play.

There were a lot of really fun sketches and characters.

Like, Totally Kyle

was, like, this surfer dude, and he'd tell like these...

wacky stories.

You know, "One time, uh...

I saw a spider...

And I was all, "Ah! Spider!"

And the spider was all...

"Ah! Kyle!"

It was just a lot of fun.

Dan would be down on set,

and we'd hear him laughing.

And then he'd come up and he'd

give us different, you know, ways to play something

and make it funnier.

Everything was really, really cool.

Until we got to...

Nickelodeon on Sunset.

When we moved over to Nick on Sunset

from Paramount Studios,

Brian Peck came in during the second season.

Brian was a dialogue coach onThe Amanda Show.

And met him the first day

the second season when we did a table read.

He got along with everyone.

Everyone got along with him.

He'd been working in the industry

for a very, very long time.

He knew tons about the history Hollywood,

and that's what I loved.

We would just rap about stuff like that.

It's like reading a book about the history of Hollywood.

I was told that Brian was a good coach

and that he could really get Drake some jobs.

He worked with Leonardo DiCaprio,

he worked with this person, that person.

I said, "Oh, okay."

Well, he said, "Oh, well, you need to come to my house

because that's where I give the lessons."

So we started using him as an acting coach.

Everything seemed okay in the beginning.

But I was always within eye distance of them.

And it was just really fun to go to Brian's house.

He would have parties.

Parents, they were there.

He had this really cool house

with all of this Hollywood memorabilia,

and it was just a house you wanted to live in.

He just seemed like...

any other...

nice co-worker...

you know, at that point.

Brian and I became really close

because we had a lot of the same interests.

Which, looking back, I think that was probably

a little calculated.

You hear the scuttlebutt about the business,

and you got to watch your kids, and this and that,

so I was very attentive.

All the other parents would be seen and not heard,

which I would never interrupt anything,

but very rarely sat in the green room,

I'd always be off set.

Somewhere where I could always keep my eyes on Drake.

And unfortunately, I started with seeing

Brian just start to hang around Drake too much.

And it didn't set well with me.

Drake would be in the dressing room or something,

and in would pop Brian.

And, um...

Uh...

Just touch Drake.

You know, do things that...

"Wait a second, what are you doing?

Drake can put that on his self."

And the thing is, this is in front of people.

Then he'd maybe walk over to Drake

and be feeding him some lines or whatever,

and put his arm around his waist,

put his hand up on his shoulder

and kind of run it down his arm.

And things like that.

And this would happen routinely.

Was just always uncomfortable.

Leo, as you know,

the latest, hottest, hunkiest teen idol there is.

Yeah, these muscles.

I saw this video of Brian Peck

onGrowing Pains with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Grabbing his shoulder,

run it across him and going down his arms.

That's the kind of behavior I saw him with my son.

Same frickin' behavior.

So I went to production

and said, you know, "I really am very uncomfortable

with this guy, Brian Peck...

always being around my son."

I go, "I don't see anything abnormal,

but it just doesn't...

I don't have a good feeling."

And she just goes, "Oh, well, I don't know

if you knew it or not, but he's gay.

Maybe you're just homophobic, and you just...

You know, you just don't understand

that he's a touchy-feely guy."

So I said, "Okay."

And then it just... it just...

kept not setting well with me.

So I told people on the set.

And I was ostracized.

And so I backed off.

Brian was still my friend, everything was fine.

I didn't think anything of anything that was happening.

In hindsight, I should've been able to...

see, but as a kid, you have no clue.

My dad saw it a mile away.

During theAmanda Show,

we were still working on the next idea

for what would be the Drake & Josh show.

We were working on a sketch for The Amanda Show.

Hey, shrimp.

Josh and I get into, like, a tussle

over this... this...

grilled shrimp that had landed from the sky.

Give it!

No! No! I want it!

One of the writers of The Amanda Show

had leaned over to Dan and said,

"Hey, you know, Nickelodeon's looking for

some sort of new buddy comedy."

And he pointed to the monitor and he goes,

"There's your buddies right there."

I want the shrimp!

-I will get you-- -I want the shrimp!

Dan took me out to lunch one day.

We went to a place called Off Vine,

right next to Nick on Sunset.

He was saying, you know, "I'm coming up with this idea

for you and Josh.

Would you be interested in doing that?"

We couldn't believe it.

I mean, me and my dad just drove home just going,

"What in the world? Like, this is...

This is what I've always dreamed of."

We were excited.

But that's right when Brian had got his hooks in.

He's the one that started telling Drake that

I shouldn't be his manager.

And I confronted Brian about that.

And he goes, "Well, parents shouldn't be their child's managers."

And I just blew it off.

Because I don't think that was ever gonna happen.

So Brian started integrating himself

into my life pretty heavily.

He would come to my concerts.

And that's when it started to get a little bit, um...

A little bit more extracurricular than normal.

Like, Dan might have come to a concert

if it was really close to him.

But Brian would drive to San Diego

to see a concert I was playing.

At that time, totally normal to me.

Then there was a time that I set up a concert

at Strawberry Festival for Drake and his band.

And who pops up? Brian Peck.

Who pops up? Brian's friends.

And they're following Drake

all through the Strawberry Festival.

And I'm just going, "What is this?"

It was my first band that I'd ever played with.

Brand new.

Just exciting to be playing live,

and it was just like, "My friends are coming to my shows."

Like, "Cool."

And then there was a birthday party for Drake.

And Brian wanted to have it at his house.

And I said, "Whoa, Brian, I don't want Drake

having his birthday party at your house."

It was my 15th birthday.

Brian had suggested,

"Oh, hey, you can perform, and everybody can come."

I lived in Orange County which was an hour away,

and everyone I wanted to come to my birthday

was who I worked with on the show.

And so it made it easy.

It just didn't seem like something

that was that out of the ordinary.

Then after I got his presents out of the car,

I looked in a bag

and I saw these, um...

birthday cards from Brian's friends

that were at the party,

and they were really inappropriate.

They just had adult things in them,

adult descriptions.

And I thought, "Woah, this is..."

And then I said, "Drake, what is this?"

He goes, "I don't know. I didn't even know I have those."

And so we just left it at that.

The situation with Brian

is it had all been building up.

And so my dad started making it very difficult

for Brian to be around me.

I think Brian got a sense that my dad was...

on the watch.

And so he started to really drive a wedge

between my dad and me.

He started talking about

how my dad's stealing my money,

nobody likes that my dad's on set,

he's a real problem.

So he just started making me believe that

he was horrible for my career,

I wasn't gonna be able to move forward with him in it.

And coming from someone like Brian,

I was believing it because he's...

been in this business for so long

and he must know more than us.

Also because I was spending so much time

more so around him than I was really my dad.

I think Drake was so distraught over everything

that he avoided me.

Which is understandable.

He was under a lot of, "I don't want my dad to be my manager.

I feel guilty about that."

And my mom and my dad

had a very tumultuous relationship.

They did not get along.

And I think Brian saw that.

So Brian really started getting into my mom's mind

and telling her the same things

he was telling me.

He found an attorney

to find out about Drake's financial situation.

There was never any mishandling of any funds.

But it was like an army against my dad.

After that, Drake had stayed with his mom for about a week,

and then I got a phone call from his mom.

Saying, "Drake doesn't want you to be his manager anymore."

And my dad was like,

"Is this what you want to do?"

At that time,

I said, "I want what my son wants."

It's killing me, it's hurting me...

It's breaking my heart,

but I want to do what Drake wants."

So, I said, "Okay."

Our relationship was just completely eviscerated.

I think he felt like he was going through

the divorce with my mom all over again.

And fighting for me again,

you know, just like he did

when I was five years old, you know?

Oh, man, this will make me cry,

thinking about it like that.

Um...

I broke down and cried.

I knew that was gonna

sever me and my son's relationship.

And that I wouldn't be seeing him.

And, uh,

it wasn't like he was five years old,

where I could say, "Give me my visitation."

Because Drake was old enough to make his own decisions.

So I turned her over, you know, the bank account,

I turned her over all kinds of...

paperwork that she needed

to be able to handle Drake's career.

But I did say to her,

and I said this to her in person, I said,

"But...

you never...

ever leave Drake alone with Brian Peck,

and you never let him be around him

unsupervised, period, whatsoever.

And Brian just absolutely tricked her.

He knew that I loved going to Disneyland.

He would say, "Hey, me and my friends are going to Disneyland

you know, would you like to come?"

And we'd go spend the whole day there

and have a great time.

This point, production of The Amanda Show was over.

There was all this just time of, like, floating around.

We hadn't gone into production forDrake and Josh.

And we hadn't shot the pilot.

There was a huge gap.

And then, very, very quickly,

Brian put himself in the position

of what my dad was doing my whole life.

My mom didn't want to drive to LA.

She didn't like driving.

So Brian would come and pick me up for auditions.

I would end up staying the night

because, well, I lived in Orange County

and I would have auditions, and then it would be,

you know, easier to drive me home the next day

instead of driving me home and getting me home at midnight,

or whatever... Whatever excuse, you know,

he came up with.

And that's the way it happened, uh...

for quite a while.

He had... he had pretty much

worked his way into every aspect of my life.

Everything changed with Brian one morning.

It just... everything...

I knew that everything...

I knew that my life was gonna be absolutely, completely different

from that point on.

I was sleeping on the couch where I would usually sleep.

And, uh...

I woke up to him...

uh...

I... I...

I opened my eyes, I woke up.

And he was, uh...

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.

I couldn't run outside, have my--

I mean-- I just--

You know, what am I gonna call my mom and be like,

"Hey, this just happened. Can you come and pick me up?

I'll just sit here and wait."

I had no car, I didn't drive.

I was 15 at this time.

And so...

it just became this...

this secret that I had held onto.

And it became...

You know, I couldn't say I no longer wanted to go to Brian's house,

because then they're gonna raise questions,

"Well, why don't you want to go to Brian's?"

And then, you know, he's so apologetic,

"Oh, this will never happen again,

I'm so sorry," you know--

"I don't know what got into me."

And, "I crossed the line."

And, "This will never happen again."

Um...

And, well...

He figured out how to...

convince my mom and everyone around to...

have me--

You know, anytime I would have an audition,

or any time I need 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, um...

and worse.

And...

I was just trapped.

And I didn't...

I had...

I had no way out.

The abuse was extensive.

And it got, uh...

pretty brutal.

Pretty brutal. Um...

I don't know, uh...

I really don't know how to, uh...

Um...

elaborate on that on camera, really.

Whatever you feel comfortable, or you think would--

- Why don't you do this? - Yeah.

I don't you think of the worst stuff

that someone could do to somebody

as a sexual assault,

and that'll answer your question.

I don't know how else to put it.

It was not a...

one-time thing, it was not a...

"Oops, I...

No, it was-- I mean--

Ah!

I often look back at that time

and wonder how in the world I survived.

I remember all of the abusive events.

But...

everything outside of that is very blurry to me.

Which is a bummer because I, uh...

I experienced a lot of great things in my life,

in my career during all this time.

But it was so overshadowed and...

and ruined by

what I was dealing with on the inside.

Um, that...

it made it really hard for me.

I didn't feel like anyone knew anything.

I was...

under the impression that this was just a big, giant secret.

I just hoped and prayed

that one day it would just stop.

And then I got a girlfriend,

and I was basically spending all of my time

at my girlfriend's house because I felt...

so safe there.

And her mom...

It took her about six seconds...

to, uh...

to catch on to what was going on.

There was this time that I was at her house,

and Brian had planned to take me to Disneyland.

I was like, "This is not happening.

I'm not going...

"I don't-- No."

And Brian's calling my cell phone non-stop.

I was just ignoring it.

Well, he started calling my girlfriend's house.

Non-stop.

I mean, over and over and over and over.

Finally, her mom answered.

And brought it to me.

And he's like, "What are you doing? We had plans."

People are watching me on the phone,

so I just played it off like, "I must've made double plans,

but I'm... I'm gonna hang here tonight.

And he got really upset.

And I hung up the phone.

And he started calling back and calling back.

My girlfriends mom said, "Hey, Drake,

can I talk to you in the kitchen for a second?"

She shuts the door behind me so it's just the two of us.

She's like, "What's going on?"

And I go...

"Oh, yeah, Brian, we had plans"

She goes, "No, no, no, no.

A 40-something year old man

does not call my daughter's boyfriend

like that.

My girlfriends mom asked, "What's going on?"

And I go...

"Oh, you know, he is kind of strange.

I'm trying to distance myself from him

because, like, things are getting a little weird."

So, she took matters into her own hands.

She called my mom, she's like,

"I'm taking Drake to see our therapist tomorrow

because something...

Something is going on.

And we need to figure it out because...

Seems like he's in quite a bit of danger."

I'm so I went to the therapist and...

I just felt so scared to say anything,

I didn't know how to explain it.

I mean, I still don't. I mean, I'm still like...

You know, I've never...

talked about this outside of...

therapy, which...

And, uh...

Um...

And I just... I just said,

"Nah, you know, it's... Everything's...

Everything's normal.

It's just, you know, things are getting a little weird, but...

But nothing's happened." Uh...

You know, "Good thing we caught it when we did," you know.

And then I realized...

it was just so calculated, you know, it's just...

I was like, "Wow, you got...

you moved all the pieces into place."

The whole thing was mental manipulation.

He was so integrated in all of these

different productions,

and the knew these directors and these producers,

that if I...

were to...

say anything or...

do anything...

that...

he had the ability to basically...

go, "You're never gonna work with this person,

you're never gonna work with that person."

So, it was me believing that I would

never be able to do this ever again.

And I would have to go...

figure out how to wax surfboards or...

You know?

I didn't want to risk that.

You know, I was doing what I loved to do and...

And so I just kept it inside.

We ended up having to re-shoot the pilot forDrake & Josh.

And Brian was trying to get me

to convince Dan

that he should be the dad on the show.

And...

I was like, "That is not gonna happen.

You're not coming anywhere near the show."

And then...

one day, I was just on the phone to my mom.

I just exploded.

I have no idea what provoked it,

I have no idea what happened.

But I just...

screamed into the phone...

everything...

that had been happening to me.

My mom immediately called the police,

and within I don't know how much time,

I was sitting in...

the dining room of my mom's house

with a few detectives and my mom,

being asked what happened.

The investigation was pretty brutal.

I had to, uh...

be, uh...

excruciatingly detailed...

uh...

about every single...

thing-- time that it had happened...

with two absolute strangers.

The worst part was

I had to make a phone call to Brian

and get him to admit...

um...

what he had done.

And so...

there I was in this room of my mom's house.

It looked like a movie.

They had old-style tape recorder...

attached to a black phone, landline.

You know, they had their headphones on.

I took a couple of times.

Then I had called...

he answers.

So I said...

"You know, I'm really struggling with...

with this stuff now and..."

Like, "I'm so torn up, I'm so broken

I... I can't...

I'm so emotionally distressed right now."

And, "Why... Why did...

Why did this happen?"

You know?

He just started a full-on confession.

And then...

He kept asking me over and over again.

He's like, "Are we being recorded?"

It was just all these mixed emotions of... of...

"Thank God. Finally."

This...

Finally, this gets handled.

Finally, something happens to this person.

I was like, "What next?

What next?" You know?

"Am I gonna get to make my show?

Is this gonna be public?"

I was losing my hair.

I had these big scabs on my head.

I was going to the doctor,

and the doctor was asking me,

"You know, all of your vitals are fine,

but how is the...

How's your stress level these days?"

I'm like, "It's very high."

And then Brian got arrested...

for doing really, really horrendous things to me.

These emotions that we're going through me were...

It's... It's relief and fear.

You know, "Am I...

going to survive this?"

That's when my phone started blowing up.

"Did you hear what happened to Brian?"

I just hope that nobody knew it was me.

After Brian was arrested,

Dan called and asked me...

"Does this have anything to do with you?"

I was close enough with Dan

that I was like, "Yeah, man, like, this is...

This was what he's been doing.

And Dan just goes,

"You don't need to talk anymore about it.

That's all I needed to hear. Are you okay?"

You know, "Do you need anything from me?

Is there anything that you need?"

Brian was spending so much time...

around me that it was pretty obvious.

I get a phone call from Drake.

I go, "What's up? I haven't heard from you for a while."

And I was like... Did you see they got him?

I go, "What do you mean?"

"Brian, they arrested him."

And Drake says,

"They arrested him for a molestation."

I go, "You're kidding.

I knew it. i knew it."

And my dad just goes, "I am so glad

that he was not able to get his hands on you."

My dad's very emotional, and I've just...

We were starting to rekindle our relationship,

and I just couldn't...

So I just said, "Yeah, you know, they got him."

He's like, "Oh, I'm so glad.

I knew he was gonna do something to someone."

How did it make you feel when you finally found out?

I was-- are you kidding? I'm--

I'm not the same today.

The pain's still there from the moment that I knew.

It's just that...

I don't wish this on any parent

or child whatsoever.

It's just devastating.

It took quite a while to go to court.

But a few weeks after he was arrested,

I had started shooting the show,

Drake & Josh.

Thank God that I loved what I was doing.

When I was on set and doing a scene with Josh,

I was able to lose myself and just have fun.

Hey, Josh.

You wanna go play any basket--

Sometimes you'd find yourself on a red carpet

or an event or something like that.

We're stepbrothers on the show,

and he's kind of the nerdy, wacky kid,

and I'm kind of the "think I'm cool" guy,

but I'm not really that smooth.

It was just exciting.

But that juxtaposed with one of the most...

You know, probably the most...

traumatic experiences of my life.

I didn't know how to process it.

And I think that led to a lot of...

A lot of self destruction

and a lot of, uh...

self loathing, really, you know?

So I would try and just escape

with alcohol abuse, substance abuse.

Um...

Really just anything to...

escape, really.

And it was difficult, too,

because on one hand, your...

employer and...

the people who are making money off of you...

are saying, "You have to be this great role model."

And I'm...

sitting at home, going...

"I don't know how to be a role model.

Nor do I have the ability or capability at this point."

I'm curious, you know, after the arrest,

after this happened,

did anyone at Nickelodeon, any executives

talk to you, reach out to you?

You know, I'm not really certain

how many people knew...

who...

it was.

It wasn't really brought up to me a lot.

Maybe because, you know, it's very sensitive subject.

Um...

But really, the only...

person that I remember...

being there for me...

uh, was Dan.

Unfortunately, there was no therapy,

and was left to my own devices,

which, at that age, probably isn't the best thing.

There's a long period, and then we go to sentencing.

I was hoping that the outcome would be

he goes to jail,

he is there for a while,

and that he would never be able to

work with kids again,

which would, in turn, pretty much mean

that you're not gonna work in Hollywood,

because very few productions

don't have at least one kid on the set.

Is that what happened?

No, that is not what happened.

That's not what happened at all.