Drake Bell is clearing up some confusion about him pleading guilty to a child endangerment charge in 2021.
While appearing on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast earlier this week, the Drake & Josh alum spoke about having to plead guilt for a felony charge of attempted child endangerment. He also had a misdemeanor charge of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
Both charges were related to the inappropriate text messages Drake Bell had sent to a teenage girl in 2017. Bell shared his side of what happened.
“I’d responded on some DMs and was incredibly irresponsible,” Bell explained. “And got myself into conversations that I shouldn’t have had.”
Eventually, Drake Bell did end up finding out that he was talking to an underage girl. He claimed that everything snowballed into allegations that were not true.
“It just turned into this big thing,” Bell continued. “I was being investigated, and that was really difficult on my family.”
Drake Bell then said through 18 months of subpoenaing his social media, computers, and witnesses, it turned out that what he was accused of was not true.
But he further addressed why he pleaded guilty to the felony and misdemeanor charges. “I did have these conversations and took responsibly for that and ended up pleading guilty,” he explained. “Because I financially was just devastated, and I’d just had a son, and I didn’t wanna put my family through all of this anymore.”
Drake Bell said he went through the process feeling very regretful of his actions. “There’s just so much that I’ve had to deal with,” he noted. “And through that, not having the tools, not knowing how to process things, I made a lot of decisions in my life that I shouldn’t have made and hurt a lot of people.”
Drake Bell Detailed What Led to the Child Endangerment Investigation
As he continued to talk about the legal situation, Drake Bell detailed what led to the investigation in the first place. He noted that after finding out the girl’s age, he cut all communication with her.
“I think she got upset, and she was coming to concerts still,” he said. “And I was doing everything I could to kind of keep my distance.”
After he stopped speaking to her, Drake Bell also said the girl started accusing him of doing something at a concert. “Throughout the investigation, there were witnesses who were there the whole time who refuted it,” he explained. “People who weren’t even connected with me that were friends of hers.”
Bell then added that friends of her family refuted the girl’s claims. “A lot of things that she said about sending inappropriate pictures and things like this, it was able to be investigated and show that none of that existed.”
Drake Bell appeared in ID’s Quiet on Set documentary, which was released last month. He revealed he was sexually abused by former Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck during his early acting days. In 2003, Peck was arrested for child sexual abuse and was sentenced to 19 months in prison.