Drake Bell suffered hair loss during the investigation into Brian Peck's abuse
The 'Drake and Josh' actor has admitted at a teenager he was worried about the impact of the investigation and how it would affect both the Nickelodeon sitcom and his friendship with co-star Josh Peck, who is not related to the disgraced dialogue coach
27 March 2025
Speaking to Josh on his 'Good Guys' podcast, Drake recalled: "'Is this gonna hurt our show? When this drops, is Josh gonna look at me and be like, Bro, you took our dream away?'
"I was losing my hair. I had these giant scabs on my head.
"I had no idea why and there were like golf ball size scabs where I'm losing my hair. Then I got to go back and shoot the show."
The dialect coach was arrested in 2003 on 11 charges relating to child sexual abuse, and was sentenced the following year.
Drake revealed on last year's docuseries 'Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV' that he was he was the unnamed abuse victim.
Josh admitted he had no idea the investigation was underway, and he thought Josh simply didn't want to be friends anymore as he became more detached.
He said: "Until you sort of shared with me what was happening, I was just looking at it through the prism of a 14-year-old's brain going like, 'He doesn't want much to do with me'.
"And, in watching the documentary at 38 as a father, as a grownup, so much was revealed to me."
He remembered asking Drake if he still spoke to Brian, adding: "And you just looked at me like, 'No. Brian's a really bad guy.' And I remember thinking, 'Gotcha.' And it was all that I needed to know."
Although Brian didn't work on 'Drake and Josh', he visited the set - the same one where 'The Amanda Show' was filmed - when the cast and crew were working on the pilot.
Drake told Josh: "The big break between 'Drake and Josh' and 'Amanda Show' is when I told my mom what was going on.
"And then when we shot the pilot, we were in the middle of the investigation, but nobody had known anything because Brian hadn't been arrested."
He recalled it feeling like a "monster" had invaded his "safe space".
He said: "That's the only place I feel comfortable, when I get to set and hang out with you guys, and we go goof around and put on our masks and wigs and makeup and make people laugh and slide around and get dirty."
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