Credit: Investigation Discovery/YouTube
March 2024
In the Investigation Discovery special Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, Bell spoke out for the first time about being sexually assaulted by Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck as a minor.
Brian (who has no relation to Josh) was arrested in August 2003 after he was accused of sexually abusing a then-unnamed child. He pleaded no contest to performing a lewd act with a victim around 14 or 15 years old and to oral copulation with a child under 16 years old. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
“I really don’t know how to elaborate on that on camera. … Why don’t you think of the worst stuff someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault and that will answer your question,” Bell said of the abuse during the docuseries. “I don’t know how else to put it. It was not a one-time thing.”
After some social media users speculated that Josh hadn’t done enough to support Bell in the wake of the revelation, Bell defended his former costar.
“I want to clear something up. I’ve noticed a lot of comments on some of Josh’s TikToks and some of his posts and I just want to let you guys know … processing this and going through this is a really emotional time and a lot of it is very difficult,” Bell said via TikTok. “So not everything is put out to the public. But I want you guys to know that he has reached out to me.”
Bell encouraged his followers to “take it a little easy on Peck” who had “been really great” to him.
Josh subsequently issued an Instagram statement noting that it took him “a few days to process” Quiet On Set.
“I reached out to Drake privately, but wanted to give my support for the survivors who were brave enough to share their stories of emotional and physical abuse on Nickelodeon sets with the world,” he continued. “Children should be protected. Reliving this publicly is incredibly difficult, but I hope it can bring healing for the victims and their families as well as necessary change to our industry.”
One month later, Bell said during an appearance on the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast that appreciated Josh reaching out to him privately before posting online.
“He just knew how sensitive this was for me and after watching the documentary, he learned so much that I had gone through and I think he was just so sensitive and made sure to reach out to me privately rather than just going straight to social media,” he said.
