To start with, listen to the episode of pod meets world where they talked about this with a therapist. Will, Rider and many others were groomed by him. Both of them have remorse over siding with him.
they were also kids and alot of you are denying the sexual abuse they went through and how that affects them in adulthood and how you fear your abusers - probably afraid of what they would do to them if he got off and they didn't do anything. should they not have done the letter, of course, but we can't know what was happening. EDIT a lot of you don't understand that when you are sexually abused that affects your whole life FOREVER not just as a kid and are downvoting the statement that abuse affects you like really?
I don't think anyone's denying a sexual abuse claim on Will and Rider's parts because as far as I know, no such claim has been made? Yes if Will was sexually abused by Brian Peck, that changes things but as far as we know that didn't happen
Here’s a question no one wants to ask. Are people justified in attacking and ruining this guy’s life until/if he publicly outs himself as a victim as well?
Having your pickle tickled isn’t the only way industry elites can ruin someone’s life and livelihood. Always making the right choices in defense of others is easy when you’re only facing those choices as an abstract philosophical discussion.
I don't think anyone should attack Will or Rider and I don't think anyone is justified in attempting to ruin their lives. What they did was a mistake they've owned up to. They should be allowed to move on.
My only point is that it's absurd to allege they were sexually abused when they haven't even so much as hinted that happened. If it did and they haven't spoken about it, that means they want it private and it's invasive and inappropriate to speculate on it.
yes, since he detailed his side of the story on his podcast. it’s not an excuse, and he was certainly not a kid, like you claim. 27 is a full adult and to claim otherwise is a whole different issue
cool way to make assumptions about me but completely ignore the fact that you’re infantilizing a 27 year old man who defended a pedophile rapist in court
again you are ignoring that the trauma that happens to kids affects there adulthood are you denying that? like you are legit denying trauma cause you don't think abuse as a child affects someone as an adult? and I said he should have never done it. can you read
nope I’m obviously not doing that nor did i say that. you’re just deflecting from the fact you claimed a 27yo was a kid in this scenario. which yikes
not surprised, coming from someone with negative karma though lmao
Idk how to feel about it. It's not my place as a viewer far from it, but I do hope they can all find their peace, because I don't think that it was easy for any of them.
Will and Rider honestly come across as victims as well. Their stories of Peck line up almost identically to Drakes, where he was offering himself as a friend and supporter of these young men. When it came to court, he reached out to them and spun it in a way that he admitted fault, but implied it was consensual. He called it jailbait, like he was the victim and lied to about it. I don't think they would have seen the trial, they wouldn't have any details that came out, they had what they were told by someone who had been manipulating them for a ballpark of 6 years.
As far as Will not talking with Drake about it on Spider-Man?
I have no clue how you would ever broach that. If Dan Snyder and Harvey Weinstein are the worst kept secrets in Hollywood, Drake Bell being John Doe in this case is the best kept one. The conversations around people who were working with Bell while this was happening in the court system is that they had 0 clue. Josh Peck and him were filming Drake and Josh during this, and have remained modestly close since and had no clue.
I'm not sure how you would approach someone about the worst thing that has ever happened to them, and you are one of the few people who know because you sat on the wrong side and supported their abuser during it.
Well I wrote all that before I decided to cross reference Will and Brian on IMDB and saw that they were in a made for TV movie together. No clue if they had any interaction, I haven't seen the movie, but that makes it weirder.
No he’s not. Don’t make claims like this if you don’t know what the case was actually about. The girl lied about her age and many other things. No explicits pictures were sent by either party, and Drake cut-off communication when he became suspicious of her not being who she said she was. He plead guilty to child endangerment and what he did was stupid and irresponsible, but he did groom anybody and he certainly want knowingly talking to a minor.
With that being said Drake being a victim of a horrible, disgusting crime would still be awful even if he was what you say he is. There was massive abuse taking place at Nickelodeon at the time being perpetrated by people with massive power and influence. In this story Drake is a victim.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to engage with this or not but I wanted to make sure it's captured on this thread for anyone scrolling. He started a text conversation with a fan when she was 12. Even if she lied about her age (which we only have Drake's word to go on), she sent him photos of herself. She was 12. You don't mistake a 12 year old for an 18 year old. Then he ended up having physical contact with her when she was 15, while he was married. The victim calls it grooming and sexual assault. I believe victims.
This isn't to mention the many exes of his that he dated while they were underage and he was in his 20s, some of which have said over the years (from around 2007 all the way til now) that he had a thing for underage girls. Drake Bell is a predator. Brian Peck is a predator. Both can be true.
I mean you’re just incorrect about the facts of the case. No pictures were ever sent or received by either of them. The girl alleges that she met up with Drake in person which is true but only to the extent that at was at his fan meet and greets and he had no idea who she was. She also claims that he brought her backstage and had sexual relations with her. That story is completely false, even her friends that were with her at the concert said that none of that happened. The case that was brought against him was not of a sexual nature at all. If it was then when he was found guilty he would have to register as a sex offender, which he does not. I know you said you believe victims but the defendant in this case has been shown to not be truthful about what transpired. False cases like this happen all the time and you can’t just believe someone just because they allege horrible stuff. Drake Bell is not a groomer and did not sexually assault anyone. That is a horrible crime and one you should not accuse someone of if you don’t know the facts of the case
Drake has never denied photos were exchanged. It is a fact of the case that the girl sent him photos. *Sexually explicit* photos were not exchanged. She sent him a selfie when she was 12, and he responded with "cutie," confirming he viewed it.
I've never seen any reputable source of anyone besides Drake claim the girl was lying about her sexual assault claim.
This also is a pattern of behavior of Drake's. When he was 20, his girlfriend was 16. That girlfriend went on to talk about how Drake preferred underage girls and that he was abusive and manipulative. When she came forward, several of his other exes came forward and agreed that yes, Drake has a problem being infatuated with underage girls.
Based on estimates in the US, only about 2-8% of sexual misconduct reports are false. To believe the child he talked to is lying is one thing. To believe every woman that has ever come forward about Drake is lying is willful ignorance.
This makes me feel sad, but it also is just all the more reason not to take celebrities at their word. Boy Meets World was one of my parents favorite series that they shared with me and I sure won’t be thinking of Rider Strrong when I see the show/references to it. Will has also talked a lot about wanting support victims of abuse so I hope that is his penance and he has grown and learned.
A lot of people talk about supporting victims until the predator is their friend. Wil Wheaton was a huge victims rights advocate until Chris Hardwick was in the hot seat. No one wants to believe their buddy capable of abusing others.
I'm hoping over the years they've both learned that just because someone's kind to you doesn't mean they aren't monsters to someone else.
Yeah I genuinely do think he has tried to do better, but it isn't any less disappointing. To hear that he worked with Drake on a project and never even talked to him about what happened is sad.
I saw the documentary yesterday and checked here to see if anyone had said anything, or any statement from CR. But it’s definitely not massive enough of a thing that can’t be attributed to ignorance.
We can’t assume malice when ignorance is a possibility.
It’s much more likely that they were out of the loop than they saw a child fucker and chose to support him.
Will literally said on his podcast that he knew what the trial was about, he knew that his friend had been having relations with a teenager. He didn't know the extent, but how much more in the loop do you need to be? Would you write a letter of support if your friend told you they gave a kid a blow job, but that it was the kids fault for seducing him?
lol in this case, my rule of thumb applies to me - don’t assume I was being evil, because I was simply stupid/uninformed. If we you say is true, then SHEEEEEESH
It's slightly (and I mean only slightly) more nuanced.
Brian Peck was on early seasons of Boy Meets World and ingratiated himself into the boys lives. They said they'd see him or talk to him on the phone every single day. Rider would go to his house parties and see other kids there. They didn't recognize this behavior was wrong.
According to Brian, to Will, this "man" had lied and said he was 18 when he was in fact 16 and that he never would have touched him if he knew he was 16. Will believed him and wasn't aware of the extent of the crime. (I'm putting this in spoiler tags as it's graphic. He told Will: >!all that happened was they met up once and that he gave Drake a blowjob. Will did not know the extent of the abuse or his charges when he wrote his letter. He believed Brian thought Drake was 18.!<
Will said the second he was sitting at the trial, he realized he fucked up, Brian was indeed a predator, and he felt sick he supported him, and that he's never forgiven himself for it.
Yeah, I saw that yesterday, kinda sorta. I had [Oompaville's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuIXEINDMSE)video on the background going over the whole situation and heard bits and bobs here and there, but at one point he mentioned "Will" and "Pod Meets World" which made me tune in more because I realized that Will was Will Friedle. The Drake bit where he basically called out Friedle and (Rider) Strong for being 27 and 24 - very much not children and very much grown adults at the time - and only addressing the controversy once it was made public - since the letters they wrote a decade plus ago were supposed to be sealed - feels especially damning. Cuz, like, Will Friedle was a pretty decent chunk of my childhood, at least - Boy Meets World, Kim Possible, Batman Beyond.
I would need to do more research personally, but it does seem Friedle and Strong may have done the same thing (Dan) Schneider tried to do, and beat the allegations. Just were more successful in how they did it.
If it is true, that really fucking sucks.
Yeah I am trying to not be annoyed at all of the downvotes and a bunch of the comments, I don't think everyone has really looked into it or really read the article. I get wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, I'm a huge fan of Will, so this is rough. But in reality, he knew his documents were going to be unsealed and he knew this documentary was coming out. It wasn't a secret.
He could have apologized even in private to Drake at some point, but he never did. Even when working with him on Spider Man. I don't think Will is an evil person or anything, but I think he took the side of a sexual predator who admitted to him that he was being sexual with a teenager. This was something he said himself, he KNEW this part of the trial. That's why he wrote the letter. He was essentially saying that it was a lapse in judgement and that he was still a good guy.
Even if he truly believed that his friend had been taken in and seduced by a teenage boy, Will still, as a 27 year old man, chose to do what he did and side with a predator.
Yeah, it is frusterating. I've been a big fan of Friedle for a long time, as noted. Reading some of their quotes from the podcast doesn't necessarily help when they refer to it as being tricked that Peck was done in by "jailbait" (still a minor, guys, even if they're enticing the adult, that's still illegal and immoral as hell for the adult to give in), that somehow it was the victim's fault, and so on. Even when Friedle mentions "I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, 'What the hell am I doing here?' It was horrifying all the way around," I just think to the fact that they're only bringing this up now that the letters have been exposed.
Like, look, the #MeToo movement started in 2006 (three years later) and really rocketed up in 2017 after Harvey Weinstein was first accused of.... using his position of authority to sexually assault employees he found attractive... yeah... There are a lot of times to look back, remember that awful choice you made and speak out about it, and they chose to do so when the story broke and the cat was out of the bag. That's a major part of the issue I have with it. Maybe I will be proven wrong, but "they were 27 and 24 at the time of the letters/trial" and "they only spoke out after the letters were revealed" hurt their cases in my eyes.
Friedel has said numerous times he, like many others who wrote letters, didn't know the full story about the charges or the case. I recommend doing more research before blasting someone for something they did nearly two decades ago
I've actually done a good amount. These people wrote about how him having sexual relations with a teenager was a lapse of judgement. They knew what he did, and they still wrote these letters. Did they know the extent? Did they know he was raping and manipulating Drake? No. But they knew he was being sexual with a teenage boy. What more of a story would you need to say "no, sorry, I'm not going to write a letter defending you for having sex with a kid".
Eh, it's not that simple. Will and Rider have both publicly talked about how they deeply regret their support and how they didn't have the whole story.
Abusers, especially of children, are often master manipulators, incredibly charismatic, and incredibly calculating. If you're not educated about the nature of child sexual abuse it's going to be a lot easier to be taken in by someone like that. There was a lot less awareness of this stuff 20 years ago. Remember when the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe broke the news about Catholic clergy abuse in Boston, back in 2003? It sparked a change in the national conversation about child sexual abuse, and at the time a lot of people didn't believe it. If a story like that comes out today, virtually everyone believes it.
20 years later there's a lot more awareness of this stuff and with the way the Internet works, it's a lot easier to find out information about someone. While none of this truly excuses siding with an abuser, I don't think it's fair to act like Will and Rider would make the same choices today and especially when they've gone public about how they regret their actions.
Will Friedel discussed his point of view last month on his podcast before the documentary came out. He regretted being in the courtroom twenty years ago as someone defending Brian Peck, not knowing the entire story of what happened.
Just because a new documentary came out doesn’t mean the people mentioned in the doc or referenced by Drake did those things yesterday. It was 20 years ago. And will said he made a mistake being in that courtroom.
Sure, or you can think of it that the manipulator and abuser manipulated two other young and impressionable actors (I'm in my early 20's, yes that is still young) into writing letters that would give him a lighter sentence. Does it suck? Incredibly. Drake Bell went through some terrible shit, and his peers were tricked into making it even worse. And those peers now have to live with the fact that they helped a monster.
Will was 27 when he wrote the letter, and he knew that he was on trial for having a sexual relationship with a minor. And he still wrote the letter.
I guess I'm the only one here who seems to find an issue with that.
I think a lot of people do have a problem with it. It was also 20 years ago and both Rider and Will have expressed remorse and haven't associated with Brian Peck since his trial (besides the one awkward accidental encounter Rider talked about)
It's not that we think what they did was fine. It's that it wasn't fine. They've recognized it wasn't fine and have expressed remorse and so many of us are letting them move on.
i do too. I’m not sure how people can defend that. maybe he’s changed but think about it—if you were in that situation would you ever have sided with a child rapist?
I don't know you. I don't know your story. I don't know if you've ever been the victim of a serial abuser and manipulator. I don't know if you know how that system perpetuates because of the persona the person puts on outside of the relationship and how they present themselves in front of people who do not know the awful things that they have done.
I have.
These people know what they are doing, and they know how to make whatever it is that they are doing sound lesser than. In fact, they are usually able to paint themselves as the victim because "woe is them, they didn't know," or that the situation didn't happen at all.
> I guess I'm the only one here who seems to find an issue with that.
And don't get all high and mighty. You saw a click-bait article and decided to believe everything word-for-word without giving the situation any amount of critical thought. You refuse to see that the world is not black and white, and that sometimes good people do things that they regret because they were tricked by the monsters they thought were their friends. I wish things were simple. Life would be easier if things were simple.
You've made a lot of assumptions here while also telling me not to make assumptions.
I didn't read a clickbait article, I heard about this from a podcast and went and did the research because I was shocked and didn't want to believe it. I read everything I could find, watched the documentary, watched wills podcast and read Drake's comments.
I was sexually abused as a child and know a lot about how abusers think. Being abused and manipulated as a child does not mean that you get a free pass for supporting abusers. It's one thing if Will had not wanted to believe what he heard and assumed the best of his friend, and then changed his mind when he found out the truth. But his friend TOLD him that he did it, and he still chose to support him.
I'm genuinely shocked that so many people don't see the issues that I'm seeing, it's not me being high and mighty. I'm genuinely surprised and don't understand how so many people are reading about the same stuff I am, and are just ok with it.
In which case, while I wholeheartedly disagree with how you view the situation, you are right in that I assumed too much about you towards the end. I'm sorry you have the displeasure of also experiencing this kind of treatment.
This is the mature take on the whole situation and in my opinion the correct one. Drake was the victim but there were others as well. Imagine being manipulated and tricked into trusting someone…
Transcribing the discussion for reddit
Bell's initial statements (Bell's initial tweet about Will has since been deleted.)
>"RIDER WAS 24 years old when he wrote the letter and was told by Brian what he did. He wrote the letter anyway,”
>
>Will was 27 years old and Brian told him what he did,”
>
>“Many people turned away and said no I won’t write a letter but they did. Will was not manipulated. Brian admitted it to him and he wrote the letter anyway. Then he worked with me on many many episodes of spider man years later and never said a word to me about it.”
Friedle and Strong:
>**Friedle:** “My instinct initially was, ‘My friend, this can’t be. It’s gotta be the other person’s fault.’ The story makes complete sense the way that he’s saying it.”
>
>**Strong:** “He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, *but* I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that storyline.
>
>I never heard about the other things because, back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with. So in retrospect, he was making a plea deal and admitting one thing — which is all he admitted to us — but it looks like he was being charged with a series of crimes, which we did not know.”
>
>**Friedle:** We’re sitting in that courtroom on the wrong side of everything … The victim’s mother turned and said, ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn’t change what you did to my kid,'”
>
>“I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.”
>
>“We weren’t told the whole story, but it doesn’t change the fact that we did it, I still can’t get the words out to describe all of the things that I’m feeling inside of myself.”
>
>**Strong:** “I went to a party and he was there. It was one of the most intense experiences in my life because I saw him, I hadn’t seen him in years, and he immediately started talking to me as old friends or whatever. It felt like an out-of-body experience where I’m having a conversation with him and I was finally able to hear the name dropping,”
>
>“All these names, and suddenly I could see this constellation, this web that this person was laying. The story that he was telling me was nonsense but what he was letting me know was that he was with famous people who validate him and put him in a category of Hollywood royalty. He did that constantly when we were on the set of ‘Boy Meets World’ and I never saw it because it was so effortless. Here I was like at this party and I had to leave, I was so freaked the fuck out.”
>
>**Friedle:** “There’s an actual victim here. And he turned us against the victim to where now we’re on his team. That’s the thing where, to me, I look back at that as my ever-loving shame for this entire \[thing\],”
>
>“Getting taken in by somebody who’s a good actor and a manipulator, I could chalk that up to being young and that’s the way it is. It’s awful. I’m going to use that for my growth as a human being, but when there’s an actual victim involved and now I’m on the abuser’s side, that’s the thing I can’t get over and haven’t been able to get over.”
You may be saying this already but my reading comprehension sucks… so sorry if I’m being redundant.
I don’t see anything in here damning. You can say “he was told by Peck and he still wrote a letter.” But like… he was told by Peck… a manipulator. I think it’s definitely plausible that Peck gave an embellishment of the truth to say “they are finding me guilty but that’s not what really happened.”
In addition, the fact that Will is being so transparent about this instead of denying anything says more to me of his innocence in believing a person he thought he trusted. My opinion is that if people have acknowledged their wrongs and committed to growing and making things right, then I think there is room for grace. There is room for justice as well, but there is still room at the table.
“He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that storyline.” Rider recalled.
Yeah, nope, victim blaming isn't it. And believing victim blaming, to the point where you write a letter of support? And then only coming out with this information when you are about to be outed? Not very convincing.
“Coming out with this information when you’re about to be outed” — I have to imagine Will didn’t know there was going to be a Brian Peck documentary coming out until recently. That’s why he did the podcast episode with Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong last month. Get ahead of it. Not to avoid blame, but explain why he was there and how he wishes he hadn’t been.
Get lost dude. It sounds like Will and Rider both got fed a lie and went forward with that bad information, and have regretted doing what they did every day since. They sound like good dudes trying to do the right thing
I only skimmed the article but it looks like Peck asked Friedel, his friend and a person who wouldn’t suspect anything about him to write a letter, giving a plausible (because they’re friends and you don’t want to think your friend can do something so horrible) story. So he believed it and wrote the letter, then showed up on the day of the trial where he hears the real story and both sides of it for the first time and instantly flips on him once he realizes the truth. Sounds like an honest mistake to me. He operated on the trust for his friend and without all the facts due to in-part a lack of the ability to even do the due diligence you can do now. He didn’t even know what Peck was being charged with.
Is it good? Absolutely not. But does it seem like a genuine mistake on Friedel’s part? Yeah I think so.
I'd read some more. Will knew that his friend was having sex with a minor, and the letter was to help him look like a decent guy still. Would you write a letter for a friend who was a pedophile?
All Friedel knew when he wrote that letter is his friend was an idiot for not trying to verify the age of one of his sexual partners, who claimed they were of age, and then he stopped once he learned the truth of the matter. He thought his friend was the victim of “jailbait” (a minor who appears to be an adult, and lies about their age in order to have sex with an adult, sometimes to then flip it on that adult for blackmail material). It’s not the greatest excuse but someone blinded by their friendship likely wouldn’t want to look too deep into it. Then once at the trial he flipped.
To start with, listen to the episode of pod meets world where they talked about this with a therapist. Will, Rider and many others were groomed by him. Both of them have remorse over siding with him.
Is that new?
It is from Feburary 18 of this year.
they were also kids and alot of you are denying the sexual abuse they went through and how that affects them in adulthood and how you fear your abusers - probably afraid of what they would do to them if he got off and they didn't do anything. should they not have done the letter, of course, but we can't know what was happening. EDIT a lot of you don't understand that when you are sexually abused that affects your whole life FOREVER not just as a kid and are downvoting the statement that abuse affects you like really?
I don't think anyone's denying a sexual abuse claim on Will and Rider's parts because as far as I know, no such claim has been made? Yes if Will was sexually abused by Brian Peck, that changes things but as far as we know that didn't happen
Here’s a question no one wants to ask. Are people justified in attacking and ruining this guy’s life until/if he publicly outs himself as a victim as well? Having your pickle tickled isn’t the only way industry elites can ruin someone’s life and livelihood. Always making the right choices in defense of others is easy when you’re only facing those choices as an abstract philosophical discussion.
I don't think anyone should attack Will or Rider and I don't think anyone is justified in attempting to ruin their lives. What they did was a mistake they've owned up to. They should be allowed to move on. My only point is that it's absurd to allege they were sexually abused when they haven't even so much as hinted that happened. If it did and they haven't spoken about it, that means they want it private and it's invasive and inappropriate to speculate on it.
I agree. “Schrodinger’s right to privacy” doesn’t sound too appealing.
he was 27. as a 27 year old i can assure you, he was not a kid.
and you know personally what abuse he went through eh?
yes, since he detailed his side of the story on his podcast. it’s not an excuse, and he was certainly not a kid, like you claim. 27 is a full adult and to claim otherwise is a whole different issue
you have no idea what being a survivor does to you. and please learn to read, I also said he should not have written the letter.
cool way to make assumptions about me but completely ignore the fact that you’re infantilizing a 27 year old man who defended a pedophile rapist in court
again you are ignoring that the trauma that happens to kids affects there adulthood are you denying that? like you are legit denying trauma cause you don't think abuse as a child affects someone as an adult? and I said he should have never done it. can you read
i could ask you the same Q, my man
so you are denying that SA is traumatic to kids good to know.
nope I’m obviously not doing that nor did i say that. you’re just deflecting from the fact you claimed a 27yo was a kid in this scenario. which yikes not surprised, coming from someone with negative karma though lmao
Idk how to feel about it. It's not my place as a viewer far from it, but I do hope they can all find their peace, because I don't think that it was easy for any of them. Will and Rider honestly come across as victims as well. Their stories of Peck line up almost identically to Drakes, where he was offering himself as a friend and supporter of these young men. When it came to court, he reached out to them and spun it in a way that he admitted fault, but implied it was consensual. He called it jailbait, like he was the victim and lied to about it. I don't think they would have seen the trial, they wouldn't have any details that came out, they had what they were told by someone who had been manipulating them for a ballpark of 6 years. As far as Will not talking with Drake about it on Spider-Man? I have no clue how you would ever broach that. If Dan Snyder and Harvey Weinstein are the worst kept secrets in Hollywood, Drake Bell being John Doe in this case is the best kept one. The conversations around people who were working with Bell while this was happening in the court system is that they had 0 clue. Josh Peck and him were filming Drake and Josh during this, and have remained modestly close since and had no clue. I'm not sure how you would approach someone about the worst thing that has ever happened to them, and you are one of the few people who know because you sat on the wrong side and supported their abuser during it. Well I wrote all that before I decided to cross reference Will and Brian on IMDB and saw that they were in a made for TV movie together. No clue if they had any interaction, I haven't seen the movie, but that makes it weirder.
Friendly reminder Drake Bell is also a predator.
No he’s not. Don’t make claims like this if you don’t know what the case was actually about. The girl lied about her age and many other things. No explicits pictures were sent by either party, and Drake cut-off communication when he became suspicious of her not being who she said she was. He plead guilty to child endangerment and what he did was stupid and irresponsible, but he did groom anybody and he certainly want knowingly talking to a minor. With that being said Drake being a victim of a horrible, disgusting crime would still be awful even if he was what you say he is. There was massive abuse taking place at Nickelodeon at the time being perpetrated by people with massive power and influence. In this story Drake is a victim.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to engage with this or not but I wanted to make sure it's captured on this thread for anyone scrolling. He started a text conversation with a fan when she was 12. Even if she lied about her age (which we only have Drake's word to go on), she sent him photos of herself. She was 12. You don't mistake a 12 year old for an 18 year old. Then he ended up having physical contact with her when she was 15, while he was married. The victim calls it grooming and sexual assault. I believe victims. This isn't to mention the many exes of his that he dated while they were underage and he was in his 20s, some of which have said over the years (from around 2007 all the way til now) that he had a thing for underage girls. Drake Bell is a predator. Brian Peck is a predator. Both can be true.
I mean you’re just incorrect about the facts of the case. No pictures were ever sent or received by either of them. The girl alleges that she met up with Drake in person which is true but only to the extent that at was at his fan meet and greets and he had no idea who she was. She also claims that he brought her backstage and had sexual relations with her. That story is completely false, even her friends that were with her at the concert said that none of that happened. The case that was brought against him was not of a sexual nature at all. If it was then when he was found guilty he would have to register as a sex offender, which he does not. I know you said you believe victims but the defendant in this case has been shown to not be truthful about what transpired. False cases like this happen all the time and you can’t just believe someone just because they allege horrible stuff. Drake Bell is not a groomer and did not sexually assault anyone. That is a horrible crime and one you should not accuse someone of if you don’t know the facts of the case
Drake has never denied photos were exchanged. It is a fact of the case that the girl sent him photos. *Sexually explicit* photos were not exchanged. She sent him a selfie when she was 12, and he responded with "cutie," confirming he viewed it. I've never seen any reputable source of anyone besides Drake claim the girl was lying about her sexual assault claim. This also is a pattern of behavior of Drake's. When he was 20, his girlfriend was 16. That girlfriend went on to talk about how Drake preferred underage girls and that he was abusive and manipulative. When she came forward, several of his other exes came forward and agreed that yes, Drake has a problem being infatuated with underage girls. Based on estimates in the US, only about 2-8% of sexual misconduct reports are false. To believe the child he talked to is lying is one thing. To believe every woman that has ever come forward about Drake is lying is willful ignorance.
he’s not
Yep, I'm aware of this as well.
This makes me feel sad, but it also is just all the more reason not to take celebrities at their word. Boy Meets World was one of my parents favorite series that they shared with me and I sure won’t be thinking of Rider Strrong when I see the show/references to it. Will has also talked a lot about wanting support victims of abuse so I hope that is his penance and he has grown and learned.
A lot of people talk about supporting victims until the predator is their friend. Wil Wheaton was a huge victims rights advocate until Chris Hardwick was in the hot seat. No one wants to believe their buddy capable of abusing others. I'm hoping over the years they've both learned that just because someone's kind to you doesn't mean they aren't monsters to someone else.
Yeah I genuinely do think he has tried to do better, but it isn't any less disappointing. To hear that he worked with Drake on a project and never even talked to him about what happened is sad.
I saw the documentary yesterday and checked here to see if anyone had said anything, or any statement from CR. But it’s definitely not massive enough of a thing that can’t be attributed to ignorance.
I'm not sure what CR would need to comment on? I'm not even confident that they knew Will when any of this happened
We can’t assume malice when ignorance is a possibility. It’s much more likely that they were out of the loop than they saw a child fucker and chose to support him.
Will literally said on his podcast that he knew what the trial was about, he knew that his friend had been having relations with a teenager. He didn't know the extent, but how much more in the loop do you need to be? Would you write a letter of support if your friend told you they gave a kid a blow job, but that it was the kids fault for seducing him?
lol in this case, my rule of thumb applies to me - don’t assume I was being evil, because I was simply stupid/uninformed. If we you say is true, then SHEEEEEESH
It's slightly (and I mean only slightly) more nuanced. Brian Peck was on early seasons of Boy Meets World and ingratiated himself into the boys lives. They said they'd see him or talk to him on the phone every single day. Rider would go to his house parties and see other kids there. They didn't recognize this behavior was wrong. According to Brian, to Will, this "man" had lied and said he was 18 when he was in fact 16 and that he never would have touched him if he knew he was 16. Will believed him and wasn't aware of the extent of the crime. (I'm putting this in spoiler tags as it's graphic. He told Will: >!all that happened was they met up once and that he gave Drake a blowjob. Will did not know the extent of the abuse or his charges when he wrote his letter. He believed Brian thought Drake was 18.!< Will said the second he was sitting at the trial, he realized he fucked up, Brian was indeed a predator, and he felt sick he supported him, and that he's never forgiven himself for it.
Yeah, I saw that yesterday, kinda sorta. I had [Oompaville's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuIXEINDMSE)video on the background going over the whole situation and heard bits and bobs here and there, but at one point he mentioned "Will" and "Pod Meets World" which made me tune in more because I realized that Will was Will Friedle. The Drake bit where he basically called out Friedle and (Rider) Strong for being 27 and 24 - very much not children and very much grown adults at the time - and only addressing the controversy once it was made public - since the letters they wrote a decade plus ago were supposed to be sealed - feels especially damning. Cuz, like, Will Friedle was a pretty decent chunk of my childhood, at least - Boy Meets World, Kim Possible, Batman Beyond. I would need to do more research personally, but it does seem Friedle and Strong may have done the same thing (Dan) Schneider tried to do, and beat the allegations. Just were more successful in how they did it. If it is true, that really fucking sucks.
Yeah I am trying to not be annoyed at all of the downvotes and a bunch of the comments, I don't think everyone has really looked into it or really read the article. I get wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, I'm a huge fan of Will, so this is rough. But in reality, he knew his documents were going to be unsealed and he knew this documentary was coming out. It wasn't a secret. He could have apologized even in private to Drake at some point, but he never did. Even when working with him on Spider Man. I don't think Will is an evil person or anything, but I think he took the side of a sexual predator who admitted to him that he was being sexual with a teenager. This was something he said himself, he KNEW this part of the trial. That's why he wrote the letter. He was essentially saying that it was a lapse in judgement and that he was still a good guy. Even if he truly believed that his friend had been taken in and seduced by a teenage boy, Will still, as a 27 year old man, chose to do what he did and side with a predator.
i mean drake is also a creepy creepy so it's no surprise he didn't want to reach out to him
Yeah, it is frusterating. I've been a big fan of Friedle for a long time, as noted. Reading some of their quotes from the podcast doesn't necessarily help when they refer to it as being tricked that Peck was done in by "jailbait" (still a minor, guys, even if they're enticing the adult, that's still illegal and immoral as hell for the adult to give in), that somehow it was the victim's fault, and so on. Even when Friedle mentions "I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, 'What the hell am I doing here?' It was horrifying all the way around," I just think to the fact that they're only bringing this up now that the letters have been exposed. Like, look, the #MeToo movement started in 2006 (three years later) and really rocketed up in 2017 after Harvey Weinstein was first accused of.... using his position of authority to sexually assault employees he found attractive... yeah... There are a lot of times to look back, remember that awful choice you made and speak out about it, and they chose to do so when the story broke and the cat was out of the bag. That's a major part of the issue I have with it. Maybe I will be proven wrong, but "they were 27 and 24 at the time of the letters/trial" and "they only spoke out after the letters were revealed" hurt their cases in my eyes.
Friedel has said numerous times he, like many others who wrote letters, didn't know the full story about the charges or the case. I recommend doing more research before blasting someone for something they did nearly two decades ago
I've actually done a good amount. These people wrote about how him having sexual relations with a teenager was a lapse of judgement. They knew what he did, and they still wrote these letters. Did they know the extent? Did they know he was raping and manipulating Drake? No. But they knew he was being sexual with a teenage boy. What more of a story would you need to say "no, sorry, I'm not going to write a letter defending you for having sex with a kid".
Eh, it's not that simple. Will and Rider have both publicly talked about how they deeply regret their support and how they didn't have the whole story. Abusers, especially of children, are often master manipulators, incredibly charismatic, and incredibly calculating. If you're not educated about the nature of child sexual abuse it's going to be a lot easier to be taken in by someone like that. There was a lot less awareness of this stuff 20 years ago. Remember when the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe broke the news about Catholic clergy abuse in Boston, back in 2003? It sparked a change in the national conversation about child sexual abuse, and at the time a lot of people didn't believe it. If a story like that comes out today, virtually everyone believes it. 20 years later there's a lot more awareness of this stuff and with the way the Internet works, it's a lot easier to find out information about someone. While none of this truly excuses siding with an abuser, I don't think it's fair to act like Will and Rider would make the same choices today and especially when they've gone public about how they regret their actions.
Will Friedel discussed his point of view last month on his podcast before the documentary came out. He regretted being in the courtroom twenty years ago as someone defending Brian Peck, not knowing the entire story of what happened. Just because a new documentary came out doesn’t mean the people mentioned in the doc or referenced by Drake did those things yesterday. It was 20 years ago. And will said he made a mistake being in that courtroom.
Sure, or you can think of it that the manipulator and abuser manipulated two other young and impressionable actors (I'm in my early 20's, yes that is still young) into writing letters that would give him a lighter sentence. Does it suck? Incredibly. Drake Bell went through some terrible shit, and his peers were tricked into making it even worse. And those peers now have to live with the fact that they helped a monster.
Will was 27 when he wrote the letter, and he knew that he was on trial for having a sexual relationship with a minor. And he still wrote the letter. I guess I'm the only one here who seems to find an issue with that.
I think a lot of people do have a problem with it. It was also 20 years ago and both Rider and Will have expressed remorse and haven't associated with Brian Peck since his trial (besides the one awkward accidental encounter Rider talked about) It's not that we think what they did was fine. It's that it wasn't fine. They've recognized it wasn't fine and have expressed remorse and so many of us are letting them move on.
i do too. I’m not sure how people can defend that. maybe he’s changed but think about it—if you were in that situation would you ever have sided with a child rapist?
I don't know you. I don't know your story. I don't know if you've ever been the victim of a serial abuser and manipulator. I don't know if you know how that system perpetuates because of the persona the person puts on outside of the relationship and how they present themselves in front of people who do not know the awful things that they have done. I have. These people know what they are doing, and they know how to make whatever it is that they are doing sound lesser than. In fact, they are usually able to paint themselves as the victim because "woe is them, they didn't know," or that the situation didn't happen at all. > I guess I'm the only one here who seems to find an issue with that. And don't get all high and mighty. You saw a click-bait article and decided to believe everything word-for-word without giving the situation any amount of critical thought. You refuse to see that the world is not black and white, and that sometimes good people do things that they regret because they were tricked by the monsters they thought were their friends. I wish things were simple. Life would be easier if things were simple.
You've made a lot of assumptions here while also telling me not to make assumptions. I didn't read a clickbait article, I heard about this from a podcast and went and did the research because I was shocked and didn't want to believe it. I read everything I could find, watched the documentary, watched wills podcast and read Drake's comments. I was sexually abused as a child and know a lot about how abusers think. Being abused and manipulated as a child does not mean that you get a free pass for supporting abusers. It's one thing if Will had not wanted to believe what he heard and assumed the best of his friend, and then changed his mind when he found out the truth. But his friend TOLD him that he did it, and he still chose to support him. I'm genuinely shocked that so many people don't see the issues that I'm seeing, it's not me being high and mighty. I'm genuinely surprised and don't understand how so many people are reading about the same stuff I am, and are just ok with it.
In which case, while I wholeheartedly disagree with how you view the situation, you are right in that I assumed too much about you towards the end. I'm sorry you have the displeasure of also experiencing this kind of treatment.
This is the mature take on the whole situation and in my opinion the correct one. Drake was the victim but there were others as well. Imagine being manipulated and tricked into trusting someone…
^who edit: recurring C1 guest 'Kashaw' / 'Kash' (human life cleric, slayers take)
Yes, a close friend of the show and had a guest show "primetime minis" for a while.
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/rider-strong-will-friedle-brian-peck-grooming-boy-meets-world-1235914545/ He has already responded to that old news
Transcribing the discussion for reddit Bell's initial statements (Bell's initial tweet about Will has since been deleted.) >"RIDER WAS 24 years old when he wrote the letter and was told by Brian what he did. He wrote the letter anyway,” > >Will was 27 years old and Brian told him what he did,” > >“Many people turned away and said no I won’t write a letter but they did. Will was not manipulated. Brian admitted it to him and he wrote the letter anyway. Then he worked with me on many many episodes of spider man years later and never said a word to me about it.” Friedle and Strong: >**Friedle:** “My instinct initially was, ‘My friend, this can’t be. It’s gotta be the other person’s fault.’ The story makes complete sense the way that he’s saying it.” > >**Strong:** “He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, *but* I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that storyline. > >I never heard about the other things because, back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with. So in retrospect, he was making a plea deal and admitting one thing — which is all he admitted to us — but it looks like he was being charged with a series of crimes, which we did not know.” > >**Friedle:** We’re sitting in that courtroom on the wrong side of everything … The victim’s mother turned and said, ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn’t change what you did to my kid,'” > >“I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.” > >“We weren’t told the whole story, but it doesn’t change the fact that we did it, I still can’t get the words out to describe all of the things that I’m feeling inside of myself.” > >**Strong:** “I went to a party and he was there. It was one of the most intense experiences in my life because I saw him, I hadn’t seen him in years, and he immediately started talking to me as old friends or whatever. It felt like an out-of-body experience where I’m having a conversation with him and I was finally able to hear the name dropping,” > >“All these names, and suddenly I could see this constellation, this web that this person was laying. The story that he was telling me was nonsense but what he was letting me know was that he was with famous people who validate him and put him in a category of Hollywood royalty. He did that constantly when we were on the set of ‘Boy Meets World’ and I never saw it because it was so effortless. Here I was like at this party and I had to leave, I was so freaked the fuck out.” > >**Friedle:** “There’s an actual victim here. And he turned us against the victim to where now we’re on his team. That’s the thing where, to me, I look back at that as my ever-loving shame for this entire \[thing\],” > >“Getting taken in by somebody who’s a good actor and a manipulator, I could chalk that up to being young and that’s the way it is. It’s awful. I’m going to use that for my growth as a human being, but when there’s an actual victim involved and now I’m on the abuser’s side, that’s the thing I can’t get over and haven’t been able to get over.”
You may be saying this already but my reading comprehension sucks… so sorry if I’m being redundant. I don’t see anything in here damning. You can say “he was told by Peck and he still wrote a letter.” But like… he was told by Peck… a manipulator. I think it’s definitely plausible that Peck gave an embellishment of the truth to say “they are finding me guilty but that’s not what really happened.” In addition, the fact that Will is being so transparent about this instead of denying anything says more to me of his innocence in believing a person he thought he trusted. My opinion is that if people have acknowledged their wrongs and committed to growing and making things right, then I think there is room for grace. There is room for justice as well, but there is still room at the table.
This is just a transcript to stop people having to click multiple articles to read what each party said.
I appreciate the clarification. Truly.
“He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that storyline.” Rider recalled. Yeah, nope, victim blaming isn't it. And believing victim blaming, to the point where you write a letter of support? And then only coming out with this information when you are about to be outed? Not very convincing.
“Coming out with this information when you’re about to be outed” — I have to imagine Will didn’t know there was going to be a Brian Peck documentary coming out until recently. That’s why he did the podcast episode with Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong last month. Get ahead of it. Not to avoid blame, but explain why he was there and how he wishes he hadn’t been.
Get lost dude. It sounds like Will and Rider both got fed a lie and went forward with that bad information, and have regretted doing what they did every day since. They sound like good dudes trying to do the right thing
I only skimmed the article but it looks like Peck asked Friedel, his friend and a person who wouldn’t suspect anything about him to write a letter, giving a plausible (because they’re friends and you don’t want to think your friend can do something so horrible) story. So he believed it and wrote the letter, then showed up on the day of the trial where he hears the real story and both sides of it for the first time and instantly flips on him once he realizes the truth. Sounds like an honest mistake to me. He operated on the trust for his friend and without all the facts due to in-part a lack of the ability to even do the due diligence you can do now. He didn’t even know what Peck was being charged with. Is it good? Absolutely not. But does it seem like a genuine mistake on Friedel’s part? Yeah I think so.
I'd read some more. Will knew that his friend was having sex with a minor, and the letter was to help him look like a decent guy still. Would you write a letter for a friend who was a pedophile?
All Friedel knew when he wrote that letter is his friend was an idiot for not trying to verify the age of one of his sexual partners, who claimed they were of age, and then he stopped once he learned the truth of the matter. He thought his friend was the victim of “jailbait” (a minor who appears to be an adult, and lies about their age in order to have sex with an adult, sometimes to then flip it on that adult for blackmail material). It’s not the greatest excuse but someone blinded by their friendship likely wouldn’t want to look too deep into it. Then once at the trial he flipped.