Drake Bell is setting the record straight. The former Nickelodeon star made headlines for his part in the Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV series — however, some viewers are calling him out for his 2021 child endangerment charges.
Keep reading to find out what he had to say about the conviction.
The 37-year-old, who recently recounted the sexual abuse he endured from his dialogue coach Brian Peck, has come under scrutiny for some past charges of his own.
In 2021, Drake pled guilty to a felony charge of attempted child endangerment and a misdemeanor charge of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. According to the courts, he sent inappropriate text messages to an underage girl in 2017.
“I responded on some DMs and was incredibly irresponsible and got myself into conversations that I shouldn’t have had,” Drake claimed on Tuesday, April 2, during an episode of the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast. “I ended up finding out that I was talking to someone that I shouldn’t have been talking to, and it snowballed into these allegations that were not true, and it just turned into this big thing.”
Drake initially pleaded not guilty, but later retracted and pled guilty to the charges in 2021. The Drake & Josh alum was sentenced to two years of probation and 200 hours of community service in California.
“I did have these conversations and took responsibility for that and ended up pleading guilty, because financially I was just devastated, and I had just had a son and I didn’t want to put my family through all of this anymore,” he explained. “I ended up going through the process the way that I did. Very regretful.”
After being asked on the podcast for more details on the case, Drake gave deeper insight. “I finally found out [her age], and I cut communications, and things got, I think she got upset, and she was coming to concerts still, and I was doing everything I could to kind of keep my distance,” he alleged.
Drake further claimed “a lot of the 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.”
The singer says he is now at a point in his life where he “can process and deal with this through therapy that [he’s] been through and actively going through, unearthing all of these things and being able to face them head on for really the first time in [his] life.”
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