Drake & Josh stars Drake Bell and Josh Peck have opened up about the toll their struggles in the public eye as child actors and later overcoming substance abuse issues had on their lives.
“Oh, everything was public, man. I mean, it’s just crazy, you know? And yeah, so it got hard,” Bell revealed in an episode of Dear Media’s Good Guys podcast, which Josh Peck hosts with entrepreneur Ben Soffer, that dropped on Thursday.
His appearance followed a year after first talking on the Investigation Discovery docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV about having to work on a Nickelodeon kids TV show set alongside Brian Peck, before his former dialogue coach was convicted of sexually assaulting the former child actor in 2004. The ID four-parter featured allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crewmembers on Nickelodeon series overseen by Schneider.
On Thursday, in the second part of their podcast conversation, Peck asked Bell why he took the decision to enter a rehab facility in Nashville. “I think it was just exhaustion. And just nowhere else to turn, feeling like a rat in a cage, like I couldn’t do it anymore,” he recalled.
Bell also recounted at the time having a child and a rocky marriage and his lifelong survival instincts kicking in to possibly break free from a cycle of destructive behavior. “I know how to survive. I’ve been doing that my whole life. I feel like I’ve needed to just survive. So I knew I could do that, but I didn’t know how,” he added.
Much as he resisted going to the Cumberland Heights rehab in Nashville, Bell recalled immediate relief on going through its front doors. “It was the first deep breath that I’d taken in, I don’t know how long. It was sudden, oh my God, that’s what this feels like. Yeah. It’s gonna be alright,” he told Peck’s podcast.
His resistance didn’t end there, however, as Bell remembered feeling no one understood his inner pain, or could know what he’d endured. But during group sessions Bell recognized the pain and bravery of others as they shared their own stories and that he wasn’t alone.
And once in recovery, the musician and actor pondered when and how he might talk about his recovery journey to his fans and a wider public. “That’s why after rehab, I was maybe this is my time, my opportunity to do this thing that I never thought that I would ever do,” Bell insisted.
Peck shared his own recovery journey that included a 12-step meeting where he learned addiction is about more than surface behavior to going deeper down to underlying trauma. And, like Bell, Peck learned he wasn’t alone and didn’t need to weigh himself down with personal woes.
“It wasn’t until I walked into a room of other people who think and feel and hurt and drank and did the way I did, but they weren’t a glum lot. They were people who had lives and families and careers. And I was [like], oh, thank God, I’m not alone. Because this thing, trauma, disease, addiction, it wants you alone,” Peck recalled.
The Drake & Josh stars during the podcast remembered the strain of being in the public eye as they dealt with the pressures of fame and sustaining a Hollywood career, while also facing their personal demons — even though neither of them realized at the time what the other was going through and how it put a strain on their own relationship.
But what drove them apart on set ultimately brought them together, as the duo revealed on the podcast. Peck added: “I give a lot of credit to the (Quiet on Set) documentary and for what it did not only for us, but for the zeitgeist of the world and for people watching.”
Some of the programs mentioned in the ID docuseries included The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, Victorious and Sam & Cat. Bell also talked about his relationship with Amanda Bynes, a fellow star from The Amanda Show, and how admired her talent and star power during their time working together. “She was an idol to me… She’s one of the most talented people, unbelievable,” he said of Bynes.
Peck also paid tribute to Bynes: “She’s just the greatest. She was great then, she remains great, and such a good person, and obviously has had some public struggles, but I think she got one of the great hearts and great skills, great talents of anyone there is. I just love her.”
Bynes shot to fame on a pair of Nickelodeon shows as a teenager, but struggled with mental health and substance abuse issues and in 2022 was released from a lengthy court conservatorship involving her parents.
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