Drake Bell has forgiven Rider Sturdy for his help of Brian Peck, the person who allegedly assaulted a then-underage Bell.
“I simply had probably the most wonderful dialog with @RiderStrong,” Bell, 37, wrote by way of X on Friday, April 5. “We’re all therapeutic collectively. I’ve nothing however love and forgiveness for him.”
Bell claimed in Investigation Discovery’s Quiet on Set: The Darkish Aspect of Youngsters TV docuseries that he had been sexually assaulted by Peck, now 63, when he was a minor.
Peck, a dialogue coach for Nickelodeon, was arrested in August 2003 for sexually abusing a then-unnamed baby. He pleaded no contest to performing a lewd act with a sufferer round 14 or 15 years previous and to oral copulation with a baby below 16 years previous, which resulted in a 16-month jail sentence. (Brian has no relation to Bell’s Drake and Josh costar Josh Peck.)
Bell’s look in Quiet on Set, which premiered in March, was the primary time he publicly addressed the allegations. The docuseries additionally revealed particulars from Brian’s trial and sentencing, noting that Sturdy, 44, and several other of his Boy Meets World costars had written letters of help advocating for Brian’s launch.
“He didn’t say that nothing had occurred. So by the point we heard about this case and knew something about it, it was at all times within the context of, ‘I did this factor, I’m responsible. I’m going to take no matter punishment the federal government determines, however I’m a sufferer of jailbait. There was this sizzling man! I simply did this factor and he’s underage,’” Sturdy beforehand recalled on a February episode of his “Pod Meets World” podcast. “And we purchased that story line.”
He added, “I by no means heard concerning the different issues as a result of, again then, you couldn’t Google to search out out what folks have been being charged with. So on reflection, he was making a plea deal and admitting one factor — which is all he admitted to us — nevertheless it seems like he was being charged with a sequence of crimes, which we didn’t know.”
Bell, nevertheless, additional claimed that Sturdy had been conscious of the scenario regardless of his podcast feedback.
“RIDER WAS 24 years previous when he wrote the letter and was instructed by Brian what he did,” Bell claimed by way of social media final month. “He wrote the letter anyway.”
If you happen to or somebody you understand has been sexually assaulted, contact the Nationwide Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).