Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 989 ｜ Nickelodeon Has a Predator Problem

00:00:00.000 Quiet on set, the dark side of kids TV reveals the pedophilic predation happening at Nickelodeon in the late 90s, early 2000 and extending even years after that.

00:00:13.200 We are going to dive into the details of this documentary as well as draw out lessons from it that I think we all can learn.

00:00:21.100 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:23.140 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:24.180 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:00:25.200 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:26.180 Code Allie. 1.00

00:00:30.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.

00:00:38.340 Happy Monday.

00:00:39.320 Okay, as promised, several weeks ago at this point, we are going to talk about Quiet on set, the dark side of kids TV.

00:00:48.560 This is a documentary about Nickelodeon on HBO Max, I think it is.

00:00:55.200 And it delves into the corruption at the network and the cover-up of how exact some higher-ups and some employees of Nickelodeon treated children and the sexual tension that was on set and the sexual innuendos that were very disturbingly,

00:01:23.340 seemingly placed into these kids' shows.

00:01:27.220 And so the documentary, the series highlights the testimonies of several actors who are now grown up, who talk about the experiences that they had.

00:01:40.720 And even some staffers who 20 years ago were working on set with some of these predatory higher-ups and what their stories were.

00:01:50.480 And it reveals a lot, not just what happened at Nickelodeon, what happened to these kids, but really what can happen to children in the entertainment industry in general,

00:02:03.100 even when parents are involved, when we look at the multiple pressures that are incorporated, when kids become stars.

00:02:13.480 And also, I think it gives us a lot of insight into even today's version of creating child stars,

00:02:33.100 many off of their kids' experiences.

00:02:36.060 I think a lot of the same pressures and dangers and predation are possible in more modern-day kind of kids' celebrity culture,

00:02:48.100 similar to how it was when Nickelodeon and Disney were first starting.

00:02:53.340 So we're going to delve into all of that and look at a lot of the different lessons that I think that we can draw,

00:02:58.960 even particularly as Christians, from this documentary.

00:03:03.080 I'm going to rely a lot on producer Brie.

00:03:05.940 She also watched the series.

00:03:07.680 She's got her own insight and commentary on it.

00:03:10.580 So we'll give you some summaries, and she and I will kind of go back and forth,

00:03:14.980 and we'll insert some of our commentary on it.

00:03:18.500 So here's the kind of summary that we have in addition to what I just told you.

00:03:23.040 So prominent Nickelodeon producer and show creator Dan Schneider included jokes that would clearly be considered sexual

00:03:30.260 or even pornographic to adults but were not understood by the children performing them at the time.

00:03:36.920 He also created, it is alleged, a toxic and abusive work environment for the adults who worked with him.

00:03:45.020 During his leadership, Nickelodeon saw two pedophiles arrested during a three-month span.

00:03:50.080 One of the pedophiles arrested was dialogue coach and Hollywood insider Brian Peck.

00:03:56.280 We will be talking about him quite a bit.

00:03:58.720 At the time of the arrest, the victim's identity was not revealed because he was a minor,

00:04:04.580 but now we know it was Drake and Josh star Drake Bell.

00:04:09.640 He revealed that he was the victim of Brian Peck's ongoing sexual predation as just a 15-year-old boy.

00:04:17.480 So this is very dark and very disturbing, but I think it's so important for us to know what is going on,

00:04:24.420 probably not just in this industry, but in all industries that involve vulnerable people.

00:04:32.240 Children are vulnerable people.

00:04:34.480 They are absolutely the most marginalized class of people in the world.

00:04:40.380 They are most vulnerable to sexual predation, to abuse, to molestation, sexual abuse, of course, murder, abortion,

00:04:50.300 because they are mentally and physically, compared to adults, helpless.

00:04:56.820 And they require a lot of protection.

00:04:59.780 And when protection is not there, they are very likely to be victims.

00:05:06.620 Even when, and maybe especially when, they are elevated to stardom.

00:05:12.540 So when I started watching this, I wasn't, I don't know if I was surprised necessarily,

00:05:20.400 but there is kind of like a weird feeling when you are watching the shows that are like deep back into your memory hole.

00:05:29.220 You're watching them on this documentary, like all that, Kenan and Kel, the Amanda show,

00:05:35.160 all these Nickelodeon shows that I remember watching when I was, when I was little,

00:05:39.780 some of them like all that were, you know, it was when I was really little.

00:05:43.540 And then some of the later shows like the Amanda show was, I don't know,

00:05:49.020 I don't know how many years younger I am than Amanda Bynes, a few years younger.

00:05:52.600 So I was, I don't know, maybe like 10 or so,

00:05:54.760 maybe eight to 10 when the Amanda show was out and all these shows that you kind of have fond memories of

00:06:00.480 that you remember sitting at home and watching and thinking,

00:06:04.900 wow, it would be so cool to do that.

00:06:07.200 Or wow, these are people that I want to emulate or they have a great personality.

00:06:11.360 They have great style.

00:06:12.660 They make me laugh.

00:06:13.660 You think that their life is perfect.

00:06:15.520 How awesome would it be to be a TV star when you're a kid that's so amazing?

00:06:21.020 Or you think the guys that are on there are cute, like all that stuff that kind of

00:06:26.060 helps shape your childhood or at least played a part in your childhood memories.

00:06:32.440 And so seeing that there was actually a very dark and disturbing underbelly

00:06:37.180 under these very seemingly innocent shows was like an odd feeling for me.

00:06:44.280 Brie, did you watch, like growing up, did you watch Nickelodeon?

00:06:48.380 Yeah, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel.

00:06:52.780 Drake and Josh was kind of like the show for me.

00:06:56.000 That was like the golden spot where I think I was the perfect age to be watching Nickelodeon.

00:07:00.480 See, you're a couple of years younger than me.

00:07:03.080 And so I think that I was like just past that.

00:07:05.440 I don't remember watching Drake and Josh.

00:07:07.280 Like I never watched all that or Kenan and Kel.

00:07:10.860 But I remember the end of the Amanda show.

00:07:12.840 I remember Drake and Josh.

00:07:14.320 And so I remember the songs.

00:07:16.340 Yeah.

00:07:16.720 And the opening, Keenan and Kel was good.

00:07:19.540 Ah, here it goes.

00:07:21.480 That's how it started, I think.

00:07:24.100 Yeah, there's some good stuff.

00:07:26.060 And I just like watching this, especially because a lot of the series is very like Drake

00:07:30.640 Bell heavy.

00:07:31.800 Yeah.

00:07:32.060 Um, it like really, it was a, it's a hard watch.

00:07:36.220 It's a hard watch because that was a big part of my childhood.

00:07:39.320 Yeah.

00:07:40.320 And thoughts that she, or like memories and scenes that you haven't thought of in like

00:07:45.700 15, 20 years come rushing back.

00:07:49.320 And you know, I thought it was interesting.

00:07:50.940 I had never, before we get into the heavier stuff, I never thought about it like this.

00:07:55.440 But when they talk about Dan Schneider, this awful guy who was obviously also creative and

00:08:01.180 had some good ideas coming up with the idea of having SNL except for kids, that's really

00:08:06.560 what all that was.

00:08:08.180 Yeah.

00:08:08.400 And same with Kenan and Kel and the Amanda show, like sketch comedy for children didn't

00:08:13.560 exist.

00:08:14.100 That's not something I've considered.

00:08:15.560 It still doesn't exist today.

00:08:17.260 That was very unique.

00:08:18.660 And they found a lot of very talented people at a young age, because I would say most kids

00:08:24.400 just don't have the comedic timing or ability to do that.

00:08:27.540 And so I can see why those ideas really took off and why he felt a sense of superiority and

00:08:33.820 power and arrogance because he had created this very new thing.

00:08:39.520 Yeah.

00:08:40.180 So super interesting.

00:08:41.920 I had never really thought about it like that.

00:08:44.080 And he did.

00:08:45.200 Dan Schneider, who was, they described him as a guy who wasn't really the cool guy growing

00:08:50.800 up.

00:08:51.260 He was very overweight, certainly not very physically attractive.

00:08:55.720 He got into comedy, though, and he kind of rose to prominence pretty quickly.

00:09:01.220 Charming.

00:09:01.840 People really liked him.

00:09:03.660 They liked his humor.

00:09:05.200 And when he created, helped create some of these shows, and especially the Amanda show,

00:09:11.080 I think they said that was the first show where his name was listed as the creator, it very

00:09:16.760 quickly, I guess, went to his head.

00:09:19.580 And a lot of the staffers described him as being a toxic boss.

00:09:24.820 Very, very disturbing descriptions of the things that he would make his writing staff do, specifically

00:09:30.840 on the Amanda show.

00:09:32.840 And I know that this is going to be disturbing, but a lot of this is going to be disturbing.

00:09:36.860 So I just want to give you an idea of who this person was.

00:09:41.620 This was not Dan Schneider was not just someone who was a difficult boss to work for or who 0.88

00:09:48.580 had high expectations or who was maybe kind of sexist, but he was really disgusting.

00:09:55.180 First of all, he very blatantly and openly discriminated against the female writers and how 0.84

00:10:00.920 he paid them and how he treated them.

00:10:02.560 But he would also openly sexualize them.

00:10:05.120 There's this one scene where the writing staff is remembering when he told one of the female

00:10:13.660 writers to tell a story, to convey a story to the staff, but to do so like she was being 0.85

00:10:21.860 raped. 0.89

00:10:22.960 So that's the kind of guy that he was. 0.98

00:10:25.680 He would invite someone into his office and he would happen to be looking at pornography at

00:10:31.720 the time.

00:10:32.220 He would degrade the women in his office by saying things that were objectifying or sexual

00:10:39.380 to him.

00:10:40.240 And that's not even maybe the most disturbing part about Dan Schneider.

00:10:44.960 Dan Schneider was also very close with the children that he worked with, specifically Amanda

00:10:54.200 Bynes.

00:10:54.840 Um, I don't know if you have seen pictures or videos of Amanda Bynes recently, but she

00:11:03.820 doesn't look like the same person that she did, um, when she was on, for example, of course

00:11:10.940 the Amanda show, but like she's the man.

00:11:13.580 That's really the last thing I can remember her in that.

00:11:17.040 She was just like this beautiful, bubbly, all American teenage girl.

00:11:21.580 And now we can put a picture up on YouTube.

00:11:23.900 She looks and sounds like a completely different person.

00:11:26.740 She looks drugged out.

00:11:28.580 She looks zoned out.

00:11:29.980 And through this first episode, you see that she had a very, very weirdly close relationship 0.96

00:11:36.980 to this grown, gross man, Dan Schneider.

00:11:40.220 And there's videos of them behind the scenes, very physically touchy.

00:11:44.960 And on all that, a lot of the other actors said, you know, there were times where Dan

00:11:50.440 and Amanda, when she's like, we're talking like nine years old, would be off by themselves

00:11:54.560 and no one would know what was going on.

00:11:56.900 That's what did you think about that?

00:11:58.460 They show a clip also.

00:12:00.140 I don't know who filmed it, but of them in a hot tub together, just the two of them when

00:12:06.300 she's like very, very young.

00:12:08.440 Um, and then later it's revealed that he helped her basically emancipate herself from her parents.

00:12:14.640 Um, so she started dating this older boy and didn't, you know, had issues with her

00:12:20.220 parents when she was like 16, 17 and, um, and she ran to him because that was the relationship

00:12:25.700 that she had and he helped her.

00:12:27.700 So, yeah, I, I don't know.

00:12:30.660 I mean, there aren't the same allegations as there are for certain other people that are

00:12:33.900 mentioned in the stock that we'll get to for him, but something weird was going on there.

00:12:39.340 Yeah.

00:12:39.780 And we, we don't know exactly how that affected her.

00:12:43.680 Yes.

00:12:43.940 A normal, healthy man is drawing those boundaries and does not even want anyone to think there

00:12:51.620 is a hint of an inappropriate relationship with a child.

00:12:56.060 And so he would be going above and beyond to keep everything above board, but he had a

00:13:02.200 secret relationship with her and we don't know exactly what happened behind closed doors,

00:13:07.160 but there never should have been closed doors.

00:13:08.960 Right.

00:13:09.120 Period.

00:13:09.440 And the weird thing is also, I think, um, with him, although now it kind of, I'm thinking

00:13:15.400 it kind of follows the same pattern as Drake Bell.

00:13:17.720 I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves, but we first hear that Amanda Bynes' dad was

00:13:23.240 very involved in her career.

00:13:25.760 So the Laugh Factory was a comedy club, uh, where people could go up and they could, you

00:13:33.440 know, do their comedy sketch or they could do their standup routine and they could possibly

00:13:37.560 get discovered, they could get hired for different gigs.

00:13:40.640 And when Amanda was very young, she went up and she did her comedy sketch.

00:13:44.940 She did her standup, which I saw a clip of it.

00:13:48.420 They played it.

00:13:48.980 I mean, it was incredible for being as like young as she was eight, nine, 10 years old.

00:13:53.540 I mean, just her facial expressions, her physical comedy, her tone of voice was just amazing.

00:13:58.800 And Dan Schneider saw this and saw, okay, she's super talented.

00:14:02.160 Um, and then basically got together with her dad and they crafted her career.

00:14:10.180 So it was, he was very hands-on and very involved.

00:14:15.280 I think it's odd that as hands-on and present as her dad's dad was, that he didn't step in

00:14:21.860 and say, okay, but why is this man, why is this man spending so much time with my daughter?

00:14:29.440 Why is she hanging on him?

00:14:31.440 Why is she hugging him?

00:14:33.140 Why did they have their arms around each other?

00:14:35.340 Why are they in the hot tub together?

00:14:37.220 If he was so present and involved, it's strange to me that the dad wouldn't have stepped in

00:14:42.820 and say, eh, this is too far.

00:14:44.940 Yeah.

00:14:45.540 I wondered that too with the Drake Bell situation, which we'll get to.

00:14:48.840 But, um, I also just, this isn't making excuses for it, of course, but I wonder what the dynamics,

00:14:56.640 like how different the dynamics feel like when they're in that environment where she's doing

00:15:00.620 that all the time.

00:15:01.720 That's like her job as a child.

00:15:03.860 And if he sees it as like, this is like her uncle, this is a family member.

00:15:08.860 This should be normal.

00:15:09.760 Like he, he would never hurt her that it's like, they've gotten into a position where

00:15:14.660 I feel like it's forced trust almost with this person who is not trustworthy, of course,

00:15:21.600 but yeah.

00:15:22.580 Yeah.

00:15:22.780 I just wonder, I don't know.

00:15:24.260 I don't know.

00:15:24.880 Yeah.

00:15:25.140 I was thinking about that when they were interviewing one of the people, I can't remember if it was

00:15:30.540 one of the kids that had been on all that, or if it was one of the journalists that they

00:15:34.800 were using for insight, but someone mentioned something about these kids being the financial

00:15:43.120 providers for their families.

00:15:45.620 And that's, yes, of course, that's something I had thought about.

00:15:48.700 Like I read Jeanette McCurdy's book a couple of years ago, where she talks about how her

00:15:53.960 mom was so driven to make sure that she was famous and pushed her into an eating disorder 1.00

00:15:58.800 and also sexually abused her was very toxic relationship there, which also seems to sometimes

00:16:04.880 be a pattern in this whole industry with the parents.

00:16:08.680 But they depended upon her fame, her success as a child star for the stability of their family.

00:16:18.320 And I think that was probably the case for a lot of these kids.

00:16:22.300 And when you become the sole provider for your family or the main provider for your family,

00:16:29.100 you have incredible pressure on you as a 9, 10, even younger than that, or a teenager,

00:16:34.840 whatever it is, your success is dependent upon you staying in the good graces of Dan Schneider,

00:16:44.140 of all of the execs.

00:16:46.040 And so if you're a child, you're certainly not going to say anything because not only do

00:16:50.680 you don't want to get in trouble by your bosses, you don't want to get in trouble by your parents.

00:16:54.260 If your parents are coming in and saying, you better do what they say because we're not

00:16:58.480 going to be able to pay our bills.

00:17:01.320 And to hear that, what you want as a child is to please people.

00:17:05.540 You want to please the people in your life.

00:17:07.280 You want to hear praise.

00:17:08.460 You want to be accepted.

00:17:10.080 And so you are basically willing to do whatever it takes to keep everyone happy and to keep

00:17:15.620 the roof over your parents' head.

00:17:17.740 What a cruel burden to place on a person.

00:17:19.880 I'm not saying every parent of a child actor is like that.

00:17:23.020 I'm not saying that.

00:17:24.260 But I'm sure that that is the case in a lot of cases.

00:17:28.820 And the parents are then financially incentivized to stay out of the way because they're told

00:17:35.500 this is just how it is.

00:17:37.940 And if I say something, they're going to find someone else.

00:17:41.820 My child isn't going to get a job here.

00:17:43.940 Then they're not going to be able to get a job anywhere.

00:17:46.320 Then we're not going to make our mortgage payment.

00:17:48.820 We're not going to make our car payment.

00:17:51.240 And so you are incentivized to keep your mouth shut and to drown out every instinct of protection

00:17:57.920 that you have because, oh, well, it'll be fine.

00:18:01.260 And this is just how it is.

00:18:03.540 And that's scary.

00:18:05.500 Yeah.

00:18:05.660 And some of that, I think some of it comes from a good place for some of these parents

00:18:12.040 because, like, again, with Drake Bell, Drake wanted to be an actor.

00:18:18.080 That was his dream.

00:18:19.520 And it's very clear in these interviews he loved it.

00:18:22.500 And so I'm sure his parents saw that and were like, we want this for him.

00:18:26.260 We want him to enjoy this.

00:18:27.360 He's good at it.

00:18:28.080 Yeah, and he's good at it.

00:18:29.380 He's talented and he loves it.

00:18:31.400 So why would they want him to ruin that, you know, if that's how they thought about it?

00:18:36.840 So, yeah.

00:18:37.660 Okay, we'll get more to that because I know we keep alluding to Drake and not everyone knows exactly what we're talking about.

00:18:56.940 So let me kind of back up a little bit and go through some of the other accusations of Dan Schneider that we saw in the first episode of this series.

00:19:04.180 So around 2017, videos of Pash Schneider behavior on set started surfacing along with people publicly questioning the inappropriate content and the sexual innuendos that were included in his show.

00:19:15.960 So this is one of the good things, the power of social media, that it's really like the democratization of media, that it's not reliant upon a journalist at a news outlet to report these things, that really anyone can.

00:19:30.240 Anyone can take a clip from one of these videos can post it on X and then it goes viral and now everyone's talking about it and then a journalist is forced to talk about it because it's, you know, it gets kind of sticky with all of the different media conglomerations and whom is, you know, whom is owned by who.

00:19:50.320 And so it gets kind of confusing when you look at all of the different partnerships in media and what journalists can really be honest about what went on behind the scenes.

00:20:00.780 So this is one benefit to social media, that social media can actually spread a message that the regular mainstream media can't.

00:20:08.000 And that's exactly what's happened as people have dug into the inappropriate gags and scenes that were in these Nickelodeon shows that Dan Schneider was a part of over the years.

00:20:23.440 And so here are a few examples of that.

00:20:25.820 It's not one.

00:20:26.980 And sometimes there were scenes where there was a prop that was like,

00:20:31.220 What's he doing?

00:20:33.580 That could be a sexual innuendo.

00:20:36.580 Those are good ones.

00:20:38.980 Dan went overboard and just zoomed in too often on the feet.

00:20:43.000 Wow, they're really soft.

00:20:45.060 Zoomed in too often on the tongue licking things or something that just went too far.

00:20:53.140 Yeah, there were a lot more examples too.

00:20:55.640 I would say like even more disturbing examples.

00:20:57.780 And they talked to some of the actors that had been in all that and different shows when they were children.

00:21:05.000 And they were thinking back to some of the things that they were made to do, some of the outfits that they were made to wear, some of the scenes that they showed, for example, of Ariana Grande.

00:21:14.380 I was definitely too old for whatever show she was in.

00:21:18.080 What was the Disney show?

00:21:19.280 I didn't even know she was a Disney star. 0.71

00:21:20.820 Sorry, Nickelodeon.

00:21:21.820 Yeah.

00:21:22.060 Yeah, it was victorious.

00:21:23.760 I was a little too old for it too.

00:21:25.140 But yeah, I was shocked.

00:21:26.580 Yeah, some of the things that they show her having to do in her scenes were very obviously sexual. 0.98

00:21:34.960 I mean, you can just tell that a porn sick individual, a.k.a. Dan Schneider and the other people, I guess, that he was working with were creating these scenes.

00:21:43.840 And he knew that they were going to fly under the radar of most kids watching it, but he enjoyed it.

00:21:49.800 I think he enjoyed the humiliation of these kids. 0.83

00:21:52.420 He enjoyed imagining them sexually, and he enjoyed making them do degrading things without them realizing that they were doing sexually degrading things that he had seen in pornography. 0.97

00:22:02.880 This is true in all that.

00:22:04.340 This is true in Zoey 101.

00:22:05.740 This was true in Victorious, as we just said, Sam and Cat, I think iCarly, several shows included these very weirdly sexual scenes that he says, of course, oh, no, they were just innocuous.

00:22:25.660 For example, one of the writers, the female writers, who was really mistreated and actually ended up suing Dan Schneider for creating a toxic workplace, she was on The Amanda Show. 0.96

00:22:38.760 And one of the names of the one of the characters that Amanda played was Penelope Taint.

00:22:45.500 And all right, we don't have to give a graphic description of like what part of the body that is.

00:22:51.760 But this writer brought this up and said, well, isn't that like in reference to this like a private part of a male body?

00:23:02.760 And Dan Schneider was like, yeah, just don't tell anyone that.

00:23:05.960 So it was acknowledged.

00:23:06.980 It was known that this is that there is another that there is a meaning to that word and that he chose that name.

00:23:15.440 He could have chosen Smith.

00:23:16.480 He could have chosen any name, and yet he chose that particular name and he ran with it.

00:23:22.180 And even when the execs at Nickelodeon said, no, that's kind of a weird name, he was like, what are you talking about?

00:23:27.680 And so we actually see several times that Dan Schneider is an excellent gaslighter.

00:23:33.640 So when people ask him, OK, what about these inappropriate jokes?

00:23:37.000 What do you do with these accusations? 1.00

00:23:39.100 He's basically like, oh, you sick pervert. 1.00

00:23:42.240 What are you talking about? 1.00

00:23:43.360 Here's thought two.

00:23:45.060 All these jokes that you're speaking of that the show covered over the past two nights, every one of those jokes was written for a kid audience because kids thought they were funny and only funny.

00:23:59.820 OK, now we have some adults looking back at them 20 years later through their lens and they're looking at them and they're saying, oh, you know, I don't think that's appropriate for a kid show.

00:24:11.160 And I have no problem with that.

00:24:13.460 If that's how anyone feels.

00:24:16.700 Let's cut those jokes out of the show.

00:24:18.720 Yeah, so that is that is an amazing PR response.

00:24:25.860 It is the perfect combination of pushing off responsibility while taking a little bit of responsibility, acting a little bit humble and contrite while ultimately saying there was nothing wrong with what I with what I did.

00:24:40.220 And it's manipulation.

00:24:42.800 I personally think he is just a manipulative person.

00:24:46.220 He's been in this industry for a long time. 0.99

00:24:47.980 He's not stupid. 0.73

00:24:48.880 He's a master of writing and messaging. 0.94

00:24:51.160 That's how he's gotten to the place that he has.

00:24:53.000 That's how he's become as successful as he has.

00:24:55.400 That's how he's gotten these kids, I think, personally to have a relationship with him.

00:24:59.920 He's no dummy.

00:25:01.360 And so, of course, he seems contrite and vulnerable and honest there.

00:25:05.300 But I'm not buying it.

00:25:06.560 I don't know.

00:25:06.880 What do you think, Brie?

00:25:07.480 No, of course not.

00:25:09.900 I'm not buying it either.

00:25:11.480 But I also there was a scene from Zoe 101 that one of the girls who was in, I think, the first couple of seasons, Alexa, her name is Alexa.

00:25:22.220 She is explaining this backpack scene where something something that prop is squirted onto Jamie Lynn Spears's face.

00:25:33.220 And she's explaining how awkward it felt for her because she's the one who's like squirting it on her face.

00:25:39.700 And the whole idea of these kids, they're kids.

00:25:43.820 They don't understand the innuendos here.

00:25:46.020 She says in this interview that the boys were behind the camera, the young boys who were actors on the show, and they were saying what it looked like.

00:25:54.880 So, even if the girls didn't know, the boys were saying it already.

00:25:59.460 So, they knew. 0.88

00:26:00.740 It's so ignorant to say that these preteens, especially preteen boys, would have no clue what they're insinuating with some of these props and scenes and stuff.

00:26:13.100 It just seems like Dan Schneider, he obviously enjoyed particularly the humiliation of women and girls because those scenes that we see, because that's not the only scene like that where that kind of action was taken. 0.91

00:26:28.460 That was also true on all that.

00:26:30.500 They happened to women. 1.00

00:26:31.300 I'm not saying that boys weren't also degraded like the big nose that we were kind of referencing earlier that looked like male genitalia that the boy on all that was made to wear. 0.76

00:26:43.940 But when it comes to those kinds of shots, the squirting in the face, it seemed to always happen to girls, the female writers being sexualized and being told to simulate being victims of rape in his writing room. 0.94

00:27:02.640 He got off on degrading women. 0.98

00:27:06.080 And, of course, children are easy to humiliate. 0.84

00:27:09.360 They're easy to embarrass because they don't know what's going on.

00:27:12.120 I really, I can't think of very many things more evil than that.

00:27:17.660 Taking advantage of someone's naivete, of their innocence for your own lustful pleasure.

00:27:26.420 Yeah, there's a lot that I could say in justified anger to that. 0.98

00:27:33.640 But needless to say, it's evil and it is disgusting.

00:27:38.040 And the only comfort that I have is that unless he repents and he's saved by Christ, he's going to spend forever in hell.

00:27:45.620 Okay, let's move on because we could talk about this for three hours.

00:27:50.400 But let's talk about episode two.

00:27:53.220 This is Hidden in Plain Sight.

00:27:56.160 So episode two begins by telling the story of a girl who received a role as an extra on The Amanda Show.

00:28:01.760 She was later sent nude pictures by an adult staff member.

00:28:05.820 This pedophile was arrested in 2003.

00:28:08.440 Three months later, another staff member was arrested for child sexual assault from the same show at the same network.

00:28:14.800 The episode also looks at the trajectory of Amanda Bynes outgrowing Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider's role in her family rift.

00:28:21.680 Bri, do you want to tell us a little bit more about this episode?

00:28:24.400 Yeah.

00:28:24.800 So this was actually this first part where they're talking about this girl who was an extra on The Amanda Show.

00:28:30.100 Very disturbing.

00:28:31.520 And she's not interviewed.

00:28:33.180 Maybe she didn't want to be.

00:28:34.400 I don't know.

00:28:34.760 Her mom is interviewed.

00:28:36.320 And so her mom's telling this story of getting her.

00:28:38.600 It was her dream to be on the show.

00:28:40.180 She finally got on the show.

00:28:41.900 And it was a PA, a production assistant, who was sort of his job was to like wrangle the extra, the kids, the extras.

00:28:49.760 And they were separated from their parents when they came on to the set.

00:28:54.240 Their parents were told to wait outside.

00:28:55.740 And he exchanged phone numbers with the kids and emails.

00:29:01.200 And he would just be emailing them.

00:29:02.680 And for months after, he was emailing this girl who, I can't remember her age, maybe like 10 or 11.

00:29:08.300 He was just emailing her like they were pen pals.

00:29:10.480 And then one day she got a picture in her email and she was just like so embarrassed.

00:29:18.740 Of course.

00:29:19.820 Yeah.

00:29:20.160 That's traumatizing.

00:29:20.780 She had probably never, of course, never seen that before.

00:29:25.280 And then, I mean, it's basically like being visually sexually assaulted.

00:29:30.400 Can't get that image out of your head.

00:29:32.280 Yeah.

00:29:32.900 Yeah.

00:29:33.420 And it bothered me because I, in the interview, her mom says that she did not report it because she was afraid that she would get in trouble for not intervening before that.

00:29:46.720 Oh, that's why she was.

00:29:49.160 And it probably also had to do with like her daughter's opportunities and things like that.

00:29:54.280 No, actually, because this girl, that was the end.

00:29:57.160 That was the end of her acting career.

00:29:59.140 She, I don't know exactly if it was her who was like, I don't want to do this anymore or her mom. 0.71

00:30:04.240 But there was no acting after that.

00:30:06.540 Okay.

00:30:07.460 So it really was selfish on the part of the mom.

00:30:11.240 That's the sense I got.

00:30:12.940 I felt weird by it.

00:30:14.180 But yeah.

00:30:16.020 Yeah.

00:30:17.000 Yeah.

00:30:17.480 Um, so, uh, again, like on Amanda Bynes, we don't have that much more information about what exactly was going on between her and, um, Dan Schneider.

00:30:33.060 But we do, we actually have a picture of her, um, in court back for, in 2013, she was detained for a mental health evaluation after, uh, allegedly starting a fire in a neighbor's driveway.

00:30:49.440 And this is like, not that long after she was in some like pretty prominent movies, um, like for example, hairspray that was in 2007.

00:31:01.080 And so something happened during that time, um, that I think probably has to, I mean, it could have to do with a lot of things.

00:31:10.740 We don't know what was going on in her home, but it can't have helped that she had such a close friendship and some kind of physically affectionate relationship with a grown man when she was a child.

00:31:24.340 What else did this episode reveal about that?

00:31:27.740 Um, it didn't dive into it too much, to be honest, aside from what I just mentioned about her, the situation with her parents and him kind of wedging himself in between that.

00:31:38.840 Um, and eventually she got emancipated from them.

00:31:43.400 Um, I don't know if it was because of that, but he certainly helped, um, do that.

00:31:48.320 And so, yeah, he was sort of like, I know there was a lot of tension toward the end.

00:31:52.180 He started to show like a more, a less kids show for Amanda when she was growing up called What I Like About You in 2002.

00:31:59.280 Um, that was on, I think, WB.

00:32:02.160 Um, and that, after that show, I think that was the end of their relationship.

00:32:06.040 But who knows what actually happened to her or if he did something to her or she's very candid now about her drug use and relying on alcohol and drugs to probably numb some of what happened to her.

00:32:20.320 Um, but I don't know if we'll ever get like the full story.

00:32:23.760 Yeah.

00:32:24.180 Well, because she seems like she just, I don't even know if she has the ability.

00:32:29.740 Yeah.

00:32:30.080 To bring back those memories and talk in a coherent way.

00:32:32.800 Again, if you watch her videos, like, she's really not coherent.

00:32:37.100 She's not there.

00:32:38.240 She's not with it.

00:32:39.400 Her entire self looks different.

00:32:41.640 I've heard some people, I've seen some people say this is a clone.

00:32:44.460 This is not really Amanda Bynes.

00:32:46.040 I think she's just a very unwell traumatized person.

00:32:50.560 And again, I'm not blaming it all on Dan Schneider.

00:32:53.700 Obviously, the parents play a role here.

00:32:55.660 But that kind of pattern of predation of driving a wedge between the parents and your victim.

00:33:02.600 I mean, you have you see it every single time there is a child victim every single time you push the parents out of the way.

00:33:09.900 So by the time she was 16, like him helping her through emancipation, not surprising to me, but it's possible.

00:33:16.940 Like if he is, you know, a pedophile, then he probably lost interest in her. 0.78

00:33:23.700 Dropped her like a hot potato. 0.96

00:33:26.420 And who knows what she experienced from that.

00:33:29.040 She probably had experienced a lot of very complex, disturbing feelings in her relationship with him from a young child.

00:33:36.960 It's probably like feeling like he's a father like figure, but also maybe a little weirded out that this grown man was in a hot tub with her in some scene.

00:33:45.280 And he's saying, by the way, in that scene on the Amanda show, he's saying, I'm the head writer.

00:33:49.560 I created this like I'm the creator of the show.

00:33:52.460 He's taking responsibility for putting himself in a hot tub with a little girl at the time.

00:33:59.700 And so I can't even imagine all the things that she was trying to that she was trying to deal with.

00:34:06.960 At the time and what she has experienced.

00:34:22.060 Before we move on from Amanda Bynes and into the Drake Bell interview, is there anything else from this episode that we want to touch on?

00:34:31.480 The end of this episode basically just transitions into the Drake Bell story.

00:34:37.040 They talk about this.

00:34:38.400 You had mentioned this in the summary, but there were two there are two pedophiles that they talk about that were at Nickelodeon.

00:34:43.880 Jason Handy.

00:34:44.660 He's the one who sent the picture to the 10, 11 year old girl.

00:34:49.780 He was found out to have tons of images of child pornography when he was finally caught and did this, sent pictures to a lot of kids in that situation.

00:35:00.760 And then they introduced Brian Peck, who was a dialogue coach for a lot of these Nickelodeon shows.

00:35:07.820 So that's sort of how episode two ends.

00:35:11.940 Yeah.

00:35:12.520 Unfortunately, I mean, just like in any industry that has to do with that has to do with vulnerable people, whether it's elderly people, whether it's sick people or whether it's children.

00:35:25.140 You get both the best people in the world and the worst people in the world, the best people in the world who are self sacrificial and want to sacrifice their time, their energy, their skills on behalf of a population that needs to be served.

00:35:38.260 And then the worst people in the world who see their vulnerability as as an opportunity for predation and to satisfy themselves.

00:35:48.040 And so you see a lot of these types when it comes to working with children, whether it's in schools or churches even or or these kind of, you know, shows, entertainment industry where there is like a high trust environment.

00:36:07.960 And there has to be because for at least a temporary amount of time, the parents are giving up their presence and their responsibility to steward their child to someone else.

00:36:22.000 And in those kind of high trust environments, I think the parents are too scared to speak up sometimes and to say, wait, I know better and I think something's wrong.

00:36:31.240 And also, I think a lot of times parents are scared to be wrong.

00:36:34.540 They don't want to accuse someone of something if it's not true.

00:36:37.480 And so they just won't speak up.

00:36:39.560 And I think that's what happened time and time again with Brian Peck.

00:36:42.920 So let's talk about this, this third episode with Drake Bell.

00:36:49.080 And before we get into like all of the details, you already said that Drake Bell came forward as the victim of this dialogue coach, Brian Peck, who worked with him on several shows.

00:36:59.200 He had worked on Growing Pains with Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:37:02.340 So when Leonardo DiCaprio was young.

00:37:04.000 So this was like an inside guy that people paid a lot of respect to, who was very connected and people saw him as a guy who's just like really good at working with kids.

00:37:18.760 And so when he took an interest in, especially on Drake and Josh and the Amanda show to Drake Bell, I think that probably Drake and his parents at first thought that this was, that this was great.

00:37:34.260 And so that's kind of how it starts.

00:37:37.080 That's how it's framed.

00:37:38.260 But one thing, Bree, that I just noticed in talking about his story and then eventually getting to the portion where he talks about actually being a victim.

00:37:47.720 And we'll go through the details that led up to that.

00:37:51.840 Drake Bell was very uncomfortable.

00:37:54.220 He was very uncomfortable in this conversation.

00:37:57.500 Not that he didn't handle himself well, he did.

00:38:01.440 But you can tell this still really hurts him.

00:38:04.400 He said, I have not talked about this outside of therapy.

00:38:07.660 This is the first time that he's really sharing his testimony of being a victim of Brian Peck publicly.

00:38:13.960 And he can't even bring himself to say explicitly what was said to him.

00:38:21.000 Yeah.

00:38:21.500 He says when they get to the portion of talking about, OK, but what did Brian Peck do?

00:38:27.500 Do to you.

00:38:29.120 He says, just imagine the worst form of sexual assault that you can think of.

00:38:36.240 And that's that will answer your question.

00:38:38.420 That's what happened to me repeatedly.

00:38:40.080 And he's talking about as a 15 year old boy.

00:38:42.740 Yeah.

00:38:42.960 So how in the world could this could this happen, especially to someone like Drake Bell, who had parents who were very involved again, like Amanda Bynes?

00:38:52.160 How did that go down?

00:38:53.320 So Drake Bell, he started as a child actor and his dad was very involved in his career.

00:39:01.200 And this was like kind of what Brie referenced earlier, that he was just good at acting.

00:39:06.080 He really liked it.

00:39:07.760 And he was booked on several commercials and then several small roles.

00:39:12.880 And then when he was booked on the Amanda show, this was kind of like his big break.

00:39:17.320 And this was a big deal for him.

00:39:19.520 And his his parents had separated when he was young.

00:39:23.600 And so his dad and him were really close.

00:39:25.800 His dad became his manager.

00:39:27.360 His dad was always with him at all of his different all the different filmings and auditions.

00:39:33.660 And he they interview his dad.

00:39:36.580 And from what he said, he said that he always had eyes on on Drake.

00:39:41.900 He always wanted to make sure that he was not becoming prey, that he was really being protected.

00:39:47.860 But he noticed on set that Brian was getting really close to Drake and not just relationally, but also physically that they would be going over lines and that Brian would put his arm around Drake's waist or around his shoulders or give him a hug or kind of like stroke his arm.

00:40:09.440 And Drake's dad thought this was really weird.

00:40:13.260 I don't like this.

00:40:14.400 And good on him.

00:40:15.660 He spoke up.

00:40:16.440 He started talking to other parents on set, to other staffers, some higher level people at the network and on the show.

00:40:26.860 And he was immediately shut down.

00:40:28.940 He was ostracized, he said.

00:40:30.640 And in fact, he was accused of being homophobic. 0.92

00:40:33.540 One person that he reported this to said, oh, you're just homophobic because, you know, Brian is gay. 0.74

00:40:41.260 So I think that that is an interesting seeming admission there that if you're gay, that's the reason why you are being touchy to a preteen teenage boy. 0.67

00:40:55.540 That's a justification for that is being gay synonymous with flirting with a minor, because that seems to be that seems to be the the comparison or at least the connection that is being drawn there.

00:41:13.320 So he was accused of being homophobic.

00:41:15.100 He was completely pushed out and he continued, though, to be uncomfortable.

00:41:22.040 But he was put in this really difficult position or he felt like it was a difficult position that Drake loved his job.

00:41:27.980 He was doing what he loved. 0.99

00:41:29.720 Everyone else was gaslighting Drake's dad into thinking, you're just crazy. 1.00

00:41:35.600 You're the weird one. 1.00

00:41:36.800 You're being overbearing.

00:41:38.240 And look, you're going to get in the way of your child's career if you keep on complaining about this.

00:41:43.840 So just stay quiet.

00:41:48.140 In 2000, after the Amanda show, Nickelodeon pitched the idea of the Drake and Josh show.

00:41:54.080 And then Brian Pack told Drake around this time, you know, they had gotten very close relationally.

00:42:01.120 And Pack kind of had taken him under his wing, tried to be his mentor and said, you know what?

00:42:06.880 I don't think that your dad needs to be hanging around here anymore.

00:42:10.460 He shouldn't be your manager.

00:42:11.800 You're getting you're getting too big for that.

00:42:13.500 You know, parents really shouldn't be managers of their kids.

00:42:16.980 If you want to be successful, if you want your career to really skyrocket, you need to fire your dad.

00:42:24.100 And Drake's dad actually confronted Brian Pack.

00:42:26.620 But Pack just insisted that this is, nope, this is just what needs to happen.

00:42:32.380 And so actually, through a series of events, that's exactly what happened.

00:42:39.160 Brian Pack was able to drive a wedge between his dad and Drake.

00:42:44.580 And how that happened is Brian Pack called the mom and mom said, hey, or Brian Pack said to the mom, hey, if you care about Drake's career, then you need to help me ensure that the dad over here is not the manager anymore.

00:43:02.960 Attorneys were involved.

00:43:03.760 Attorneys were involved.

00:43:04.520 It was a really ugly mess.

00:43:06.140 And I'm not saying that the parents don't have responsibility here.

00:43:09.580 I actually think both the mom and the dad that there is a dereliction of duty on both sides in various ways here.

00:43:17.060 But again, talking about all of those various pressures that were put on Drake and that were put on the parents and making them think you have to work, you have to make this career work, whatever the cost.

00:43:30.620 That's probably what led to the successful endeavor of completely alienating and pushing out the only person in Drake's life at the time who was in any way looking out for him.

00:43:45.180 And so here is Drake talking about this at Sot3.

00:43:48.940 So he started to really drive a wedge between my dad and me.

00:43:53.100 He started talking about how my dad's stealing my money.

00:43:57.400 Nobody likes that my dad's on set.

00:43:59.540 He's a real problem.

00:44:03.060 So he just started making me believe that he was horrible for my career.

00:44:07.820 I wasn't going to be able to move forward with him in it.

00:44:10.460 He found an attorney to find out about Drake's financial situation.

00:44:16.900 There was never any mishandling of any funds, but it was like an army against my dad.

00:44:23.800 Just awful.

00:44:24.820 Just so evil.

00:44:26.400 And Drake's dad agreed because he said, OK, like if I'm getting in the way of my kid's dreams and his success, then I guess I'm going to bow out.

00:44:36.120 That was obviously a mistake.

00:44:37.440 I think he would agree with that now, but at the time, I guess he just thought, OK, you know, I guess so.

00:44:44.200 And so he backed out of that role that he told his ex-wife, Drake's mom, do not let him around Brian Peck unsupervised.

00:44:51.720 Well, she did not listen because the mom lived far away from where Drake needed to go for different auditions and, of course, for taping Drake and Josh.

00:45:01.840 And so he started to carpool with Brian Peck.

00:45:06.200 Brian Peck would pick him up from his mom's house, would take him in to the auditions and to his filming.

00:45:14.020 And then it got to the point where, oh, well, logistically, it just makes sense for Drake to stay at my house.

00:45:20.440 And so Drake would spend the night with Brian Peck to go to his auditions and things like that.

00:45:28.300 And it's not it actually I forgot about this part.

00:45:32.540 But even before his dad was pushed out of the picture, he Brian Peck was grooming Drake, not just on set, but also trying to build a relationship with him off set.

00:45:46.000 So Drake is also a musician. He would play in various concerts in different parts of the country, different parts of California and wherever he was.

00:45:54.480 Even if it was hours away from where Brian Peck lived, Brian Peck would show up there.

00:45:59.040 He would show up with his friends.

00:46:01.240 They would want to talk to Drake backstage after the show.

00:46:05.280 Anything that Drake was doing or where he was performing, Brian Peck would end up.

00:46:09.700 And again, his father saw this, was uncomfortable with this, but felt like he just had to stay quiet about it.

00:46:17.400 And so that is, of course, what led to the normalization of their relationship, which then led to the sexual abuse that Drake started experiencing after he started spending so much time at Brian Peck's home.

00:46:34.280 Here's sub four.

00:46:34.900 I mean, I just, I felt for him so much watching this.

00:47:04.140 He's clearly, like, he's very, obviously he's so articulate and he's obviously very clear headed and you can tell he remembers all of it.

00:47:12.280 And he seems to me, I know you can't really tell.

00:47:14.960 And of course he's an actor.

00:47:16.120 He seems like stable to me and has like a grip on the situation, but he could not say the word rape.

00:47:24.040 There were multiple times where he was kind of asked and he would reference it.

00:47:27.620 He could not say that he was raped.

00:47:29.840 And I just like, my heart just breaks for him so much.

00:47:33.220 I just want him, I don't know his faith, but I so want him to be like fully healed and redeemed by Christ because I think that the creator of our hearts and our bodies are the, he's the only one that can really reach down into the depths and fully heal us and give us a new self.

00:47:50.260 And I just want that for him so much.

00:47:51.940 That's what I was thinking as I was watching him. 0.95

00:47:53.720 But it seems like from what he was saying, when he was a teenager, he was raped multiple times by Brian Peck. 0.96

00:48:01.480 Yeah.

00:48:02.680 And in, in actually later in the documentary, it shows, maybe it's an episode four, it shows snippets from the court documents and it, it shows what happened to him.

00:48:13.800 And it, it wasn't, it was, I mean, I get it.

00:48:17.460 I get why he can't say it, to be honest, because it wasn't just one thing.

00:48:22.360 It was a lot of things and it is the worst stuff you can think of.

00:48:25.620 Yeah.

00:48:25.800 Um, so yeah, it's, uh, it's awful, awful, so evil.

00:48:31.540 And I just can't even imagine.

00:48:32.840 He says this, Drake says at the time, like, I don't even know how I survived.

00:48:38.300 And he also says, like, he remembers all of the instances of abuse.

00:48:43.140 He doesn't remember any of the happy times.

00:48:45.760 And he's like, it's sad because I had a lot of, like, a lot of good things were happening in my life at the time.

00:48:51.800 And I don't even remember it.

00:48:53.640 He talks about one day he, he was at his girlfriend's house.

00:48:58.500 So he got a girlfriend when he was a teenager, he was spending all his time there because he was trying to avoid Brian.

00:49:06.100 And one day he was, uh, Brian was calling him like incessantly on his cell phone when he was at his girlfriend's house trying to, you know, tell him, oh, we had plans to go to Disneyland.

00:49:17.260 And the girlfriend's mom, go girlfriend's mom, called him into the kitchen and he said, close the door and said, um, what's going on?

00:49:28.220 And Drake was like, oh, it's, it's nothing.

00:49:31.620 I know he's like, you know, he's so persistent.

00:49:33.480 He's annoying.

00:49:34.080 He's calling me.

00:49:34.680 I'm paraphrasing here.

00:49:35.620 And the mom was like, no, nope.

00:49:38.120 Uh, 40 something year old man does not need to be calling my daughter's boyfriend like that.

00:49:46.020 What is going on?

00:49:47.300 And so I don't think he told everything at that point, but he was like, yeah, it's gotten really weird.

00:49:53.440 I do kind of feel weird about it.

00:49:55.340 The girlfriend's mom called his mom and said, I'm taking him to our therapist because something is going on here.

00:50:02.560 I don't know what Drake's mom said.

00:50:04.280 And I know I'm not getting like Drake's mom's part of the story, but I can't help but have like a very negative impression of her.

00:50:11.100 She's really, she really bothers me.

00:50:12.380 Yeah.

00:50:13.700 But he went to the therapist, but he knew what to say.

00:50:16.400 He was, he knew what to say to kind of cover up what happened because I think he probably didn't know how to articulate it.

00:50:23.760 I think he was scared to articulate it.

00:50:25.420 He says that Brian Peck told him, if you tell anyone this, you're never going to work again.

00:50:30.180 And Drake loved what he did.

00:50:31.640 And so I think he just kind of skimmed over it and said, yeah, it's like kind of bad, but like, you know, it's, it's, it's not that bad or whatever.

00:50:46.400 That was not the moment that he ended up confessing everything that led to the accountability of Brian Peck.

00:51:01.380 Drake kind of randomly, actually, like during the pilot, like filming the pilot.

00:51:10.820 I think they had to film a couple of pilots for Drake and Josh.

00:51:13.600 He said that he doesn't even know what exactly spurred him to do this.

00:51:17.440 But one day he called his mom and he just spilled everything.

00:51:21.500 Now, to mom's credit, at this point, she called the police.

00:51:25.620 Yeah.

00:51:26.400 And he does say that he had to tell the police everything that had happened to him in gruesome detail.

00:51:34.060 And he said one of the hardest parts was calling Brian and like basically baiting him into confessing what he did, which I just can't imagine.

00:51:45.900 Like, I just can't imagine how, how difficult that was.

00:51:51.780 And so tell me about Brian's punishment.

00:51:57.080 Like, how did that all go down?

00:51:59.340 Yeah.

00:51:59.560 So he was arrested after he basically, he confessed on that call that Drake had baited him on.

00:52:07.720 The police, I guess, asked him, asked Drake to do that.

00:52:10.500 He was arrested in 2003.

00:52:14.620 And he, the next episode basically goes into his trial and Drake testifying.

00:52:24.900 And I don't know if you want me to get into like what actually his sentencing and what actually happened.

00:52:32.560 Yeah.

00:52:33.060 So I think mostly the next episode begins with sort of his trial and sentencing with Brian Peck's trial and sentencing.

00:52:39.960 And Drake, it starts with Drake explaining his experience of going into the courtroom and having to testify.

00:52:49.200 And he is explaining that he saw on Josh, or I'm sorry, on Brian Peck's, not Josh Peck, no relation.

00:53:01.400 On Brian Peck's side of the courtroom, all of, it was full of supporters.

00:53:05.760 And on Drake's side was just his family.

00:53:10.300 And he explains that he addressed, he didn't feel like he needed to address his statement to Brian Peck.

00:53:17.860 He didn't want to look at him or talk to him ever again.

00:53:20.400 So he addressed it to the people who were supporting him.

00:53:23.120 And so this is that, this is Saw 6.

00:53:26.000 I addressed my statement to everyone in the room.

00:53:29.660 I looked at all of them.

00:53:30.900 And I just said, how dare you?

00:53:38.120 And I said, you will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person.

00:53:50.280 And I will forever have the memory of the person you're defending, violating me.

00:54:02.360 It's just so sad.

00:54:03.980 James Marsden, among other celebrities, sent executives, Hollywood execs, letters on behalf of Brian, like speaking positively to his character,

00:54:16.200 despite knowing at least what some of the charges were against him.

00:54:20.300 So James Marsden, we've got Taryn Killam, Ron Melendez, James Marshall, Kimmy Robertson.

00:54:29.200 James Marsden said, I assure you what Brian has been through in the last year is the suffering of a hundred men. 0.99

00:54:34.960 Screw you, dude. 0.99

00:54:36.460 Literally screw you into the sun. 1.00

00:54:39.120 I wish bad things for you.

00:54:43.280 That isn't, I'm sorry.

00:54:44.820 That is awful.

00:54:46.640 That is, oh, he's suffered. 1.00

00:54:49.380 The child rapist suffered. 1.00

00:54:51.920 Oh, that's so sad. 0.99

00:54:54.080 I hope he gets a job sometime soon. 0.99

00:54:56.800 What an evil person.

00:54:58.060 Really, James Marsden? 0.89

00:54:59.240 That makes me never, ever, ever, ever want to watch another lame movie that he's in again.

00:55:04.800 And it saddens me to say that includes the notebook, James Marsden.

00:55:09.940 Evil.

00:55:11.080 Yeah, I know.

00:55:12.480 Yes, and Drake has said since then, since this documentary has come out, that not one of these people has reached out to him or apologized.

00:55:20.660 I think a couple people have publicly said they regret sending the letter, but they haven't reached out to him or said anything to him.

00:55:28.340 So, yeah, it's just, it's disgusting.

00:55:31.680 Yeah.

00:55:31.880 So, Brian Peck, Drake says that he wished that him coming out and being truthful about what happened would ensure that Brian Peck would never work in children's entertainment ever again, that he would go to prison, and that would be the end of it.

00:55:48.700 But Brian was sentenced to 16 months in jail, and then he was ordered to register as a sex offender.

00:55:55.980 But when he got out of jail, he was hired on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody with Disney.

00:55:59.940 So, yeah, he just went right back, right back to it.

00:56:05.820 And what is he doing now?

00:56:08.440 Now, so after the Me Too movement started, that's when these allegations started coming out about Dan Schneider and I think more about Brian Peck.

00:56:18.280 And that's when they severed ties with both of them is at that point, I believe.

00:56:24.160 So when the trial happened, it still wasn't known at that point, right, about Drake, like publicly?

00:56:33.920 No.

00:56:34.360 Even though I guess it was technically, it could have been public knowledge.

00:56:38.920 Right.

00:56:39.560 Yeah.

00:56:39.840 Drake says it was a different time when you could go to a courthouse and not really be seen going into a courthouse.

00:56:46.780 So I think it was pretty under wraps.

00:56:49.300 Yeah.

00:56:49.420 So after 2017 and the Me Too movement, Schneider actually had an end at Nickelodeon.

00:56:55.120 And you know what?

00:56:55.860 Like, obviously, there are problems with Me Too and the hypocrisy of some of the celebrities that virtue signaled like they care about sexual assault and yet had been, you know, cozy with Harvey Weinstein and hadn't said anything.

00:57:10.780 But the fact is, is that it did become, for better and for worse, there is a better part of it, though, politically advantageous and even trendy to cut ties with sexual offenders.

00:57:24.400 Of course, I don't want something to just be a superficial trend, but if it leads to the alienation of and the accountability of abusers, child sex abusers, then I would say that that is one benefit to the Me Too movement.

00:57:40.820 Should it have taken the Me Too movement for that to happen?

00:57:43.420 No.

00:57:43.760 I also think that, like, all of this, and I mean, there's so much more that we could talk about, but all of this just scratches the surface, I think, of what is really going on in the media industry.

00:58:00.620 Am I saying every person?

00:58:02.280 Am I saying every parent?

00:58:03.720 Am I saying every actor is a victim?

00:58:06.020 No, I'm not saying that.

00:58:07.400 But if this is what we know, and it took years for us to know that Drake Bell was repeatedly raped as a child, then we can guarantee that there is more going on, even right now, even post Me Too.

00:58:24.140 And it does make me think about the kind of, like, influencer culture that we have that is not exactly the same as your child becoming like a child actor, which I'll get to, you know, kind of what I think about that and if it's possible to do that in a healthy way.

00:58:45.280 But I think about the, as I mentioned at the beginning, like, parents who use their children for content and really commercialize their children, sell products based on their children's image or their interests, so like trying to sell toys or clothes or accessories based on what their child likes.

00:59:06.300 They're monetizing their everyday experiences of their child, they're using their child's behavior, good and bad experiences, good or bad, to gain more followers, to get more clicks, to garner more revenue.

00:59:20.280 And the reason that it's similar is obviously, there's obviously a similarity in, you know, getting financial stability from your child's performances, but also because of that and because of the audience that you've built and the identity that you have built as a brand around your child,

00:59:44.900 there are very similar pressures to keep it going no matter what.

00:59:51.140 So there are still family parent influencers that continue to post their child online, to post images of their child in a bathing suit, in the bathtub, going to the bathroom, or, you know, videos of their child crying or having a temper tantrum,

01:00:09.480 even though they know, even though they know that these images and videos, that this content is being manipulated, that it is being used by creeps out there,

01:00:21.180 that they are undermining their child's privacy, that they are potentially making them vulnerable to predators.

01:00:30.620 They know even sometimes about the technology that pedophiles and creeps use to remove the clothing of the images of children that are placed online.

01:00:43.580 They know all of the dangers and yet they still do it because they have to.

01:00:47.820 This is what their family relies on for income.

01:00:51.300 They can't, they think, they can't stop posting pictures of their kids, even though they know it's dangerous.

01:00:56.680 And it's probably pretty sketchy to not even allow your child to decide whether or not they want a private life or like a private childhood or not.

01:01:07.560 They feel like they can because it's part of their brand.

01:01:09.900 It's part of their platform.

01:01:11.360 What else are they going to do for money?

01:01:12.660 Once you taste that financial freedom of being your own boss and getting a check every month because of what you post online,

01:01:22.120 like you can't even imagine going back to an office job and having a boss.

01:01:26.680 And so even if you know that it's wrong, even if it feels icky, I think is like a parent influencer.

01:01:35.280 Even if you know it's kind of dangerous, I think a lot of these, you know, parent influencer parents,

01:01:41.880 they push down the instincts the same way that these parents of the child actors did because I got to make it.

01:01:48.820 And this is how we pay the bills.

01:01:52.000 And so you push down that protective instinct and you just say, you know what, this is affording them more opportunities.

01:01:59.620 That's how they justify it.

01:02:00.860 Well, this is getting us a bigger house and better cars and allowing them to go to private school.

01:02:05.820 I mean, there are other ways.

01:02:07.580 There are other ways to make money.

01:02:08.980 And this is what I would say, even though I don't have like I don't have experience in being in child entertainment.

01:02:14.900 I would say if like you have a child that is particularly talented at performing in some way,

01:02:21.140 whether it's dance or singing or acting or, you know, all of those things being on Broadway,

01:02:26.100 I understand as a parent like wanting to see them flourish in those talents that God has given them.

01:02:32.940 I think that there are probably a lot of different ways to protect your child and maintain their innocence as much as possible,

01:02:39.480 even while trying to kind of cultivate those skills that they have.

01:02:42.600 I think one way to protect your family from potential corruption and to ensure that you are not compromising their safety

01:02:52.840 or compromising your values is to ensure that your financial stability is not at all dependent upon them,

01:03:01.660 that your finances need to be stable outside of whatever their talents are garnering.

01:03:10.400 You do not need to depend on your child, their modeling gigs, their acting gigs to pay your bills.

01:03:16.960 Don't do it.

01:03:18.180 Do not ever do it.

01:03:20.100 If you have to work three shifts or, you know, extra shifts at Walmart, if you need to have three different jobs,

01:03:29.080 whatever you have to ethically and morally do to make it,

01:03:33.900 do that before you sell your child and sell their image and sell their talent.

01:03:38.820 So I'm not saying don't do it at all.

01:03:41.700 If that is like how God has blessed them.

01:03:44.540 I mean, I still I don't have like the best feeling about them, you know, going into the entertainment industry.

01:03:51.180 Maybe there's a way to do it.

01:03:52.800 If you're going to do it, make sure that you're financially stable and whatever money they do earn,

01:04:00.680 have it go to them.

01:04:01.540 Have it put in a trust for them.

01:04:05.960 Don't take it yourself.

01:04:07.840 I think it would be tempting to do that.

01:04:09.500 I say don't do it because then it just becomes really difficult when you've got to make decisions.

01:04:16.320 Do I hold this executive responsible for how they're treating my child or do I pay my mortgage?

01:04:24.340 Don't put that pressure on yourself.

01:04:26.280 Don't put that pressure on your child.

01:04:27.680 I think it is absolutely unethical to do.

01:04:31.320 And by the way, like this is just true for all parents for us to remember, your child is not in charge.

01:04:36.780 If your child is eight years old, 15 years old, and they say, I love acting.

01:04:41.640 I love singing and I love dancing.

01:04:43.540 I love ice skating, whatever it is.

01:04:46.060 And they are angry at you because they don't want to stop doing it or they don't want you to be on set or at practice or at rehearsal because you're embarrassing them or you're complaining too much.

01:04:54.920 Or you're rocking the boat too much.

01:04:57.820 You can tell your child, no, I'm sorry.

01:05:01.320 We're not doing this anymore.

01:05:03.120 You're not going to be able.

01:05:04.100 We're not either.

01:05:04.800 We're not going here.

01:05:05.600 We're not going to this gym for gymnastics or we're not going to hang out with this person anymore.

01:05:09.640 Or you know what?

01:05:10.440 This is where it's going to stop.

01:05:12.400 And I know that you might resent me.

01:05:14.240 And I know that you're talented and I'm happy for you.

01:05:17.120 We can find different ways to cultivate this talent.

01:05:20.280 But this is not healthy anymore.

01:05:21.800 This is done now.

01:05:23.060 Your child doesn't have to do competitive cheerleading. 0.75

01:05:25.780 They don't have to do gymnastics.

01:05:27.300 They don't have to have the private coach, the private tutor, the private lesson with the person that is so good and so powerful and so awesome and has trained all the best, you know, athletes or singers or actors who makes you uncomfortable.

01:05:44.180 Do not suppress that feeling, that little inkling of ick that makes you feel like, I don't love how he's looking at my daughter.

01:05:55.160 I don't love where he just put his hand.

01:05:58.380 I don't love how much attention, special attention he is showing my son.

01:06:07.640 I don't think that's right.

01:06:09.360 Do not suppress that.

01:06:11.060 That is your God-given instinct to speak up and say, nope, no more.

01:06:16.900 You will not regret it.

01:06:17.860 But there is a good chance that you will look back one day and you will either say, that was too close for comfort.

01:06:24.780 Or I really, really messed up and that you potentially failed to do like the main thing that we are supposed to do as parents.

01:06:34.380 There's a reason why God created the family.

01:06:37.380 There's a reason why God gave children parents, why he created in the very first chapter of the Bible, mom, dad, be fruitful and multiply, have children.

01:06:45.960 Marriage, family, this is another thing that we see.

01:06:50.000 So many parents of these child actors and child models are divorced.

01:06:53.460 But parents, a family in which there's a married mom and dad is the most child-protecting, child-preserving institution that exists.

01:07:05.320 Where there is a strong mom and dad, especially a strong and present dad, predators like Brian Peck and Dan Schneider have a lot more of a difficult time preying upon their prey.

01:07:19.980 Now, if they can push the dad out, if they can emasculate the dad, if they can gaslight the dad, if they can get maybe some kind of toxic mom involved to further do that to the dad, then it's a lot easier.

01:07:33.080 That's what you see with all predators.

01:07:34.880 They first isolate the child away from their parents and especially away from the dad.

01:07:41.580 That is also why we see the kind of predation that we see, for example, in schools, like why there is so much predatory sex education in schools where the parents aren't there.

01:07:52.220 That is why, for example, you see guidance counselors, psychologists, the endocrinologists that are transitioning young kids, why they are trying so hard to push parents out.

01:08:02.960 Why they don't tell parents, why they say, if you don't call this kid by the right pronoun, then maybe you'll lose custody of your kid.

01:08:08.720 We'll put them in foster care where they will be free to cut off their brass and identify as the opposite sex. 1.00

01:08:15.120 Yalie Martinez, perfect example of that in California who ended up committing suicide after the school did that very thing in the name of liberation and freedom. 1.00

01:08:23.940 That's what predators do. 0.61

01:08:25.500 That's what pedophiles do. 0.91

01:08:27.160 It's all connected.

01:08:28.400 This child liberation movement that is on the left to liberate them from the authority of their parents. 0.93

01:08:36.280 It's a bunch of predators.

01:08:38.680 Children need you.

01:08:40.780 Speak up.

01:08:42.280 If you are watching this, do not let this, as far as you can.

01:08:46.200 Not everything is within our control.

01:08:48.020 Do not let this be your child.

01:08:51.380 Protect them, even if it means crushing the childhood dreams of them becoming an actor or a model or whatever.

01:08:57.900 It's worth it.

01:08:59.720 Poor Drake Bell.

01:09:00.780 I really do.

01:09:01.520 I just pray for him.

01:09:03.480 And I pray for his heart and mind and soul and all the memories that he has to wrestle with.

01:09:09.880 And I am thankful that he did survive that time and he's still surviving.

01:09:14.920 And I hope he finds Christ.

01:09:16.300 And I hope that for all of these actors who have been traumatized in this way.

01:09:20.200 I mentioned Jeanette McCrudy.

01:09:21.980 And I think her book was called I'm Glad My Mom Died.

01:09:25.140 It's a really good book.

01:09:26.540 Like, it sounds terrible.

01:09:27.840 It was a really good book.

01:09:28.480 You should read it.

01:09:29.160 But I thought the same thing about her.

01:09:30.640 I'm like, gosh, I really want you to know, like, who died for you and how much you're worth because God says that you are.

01:09:37.980 And this is like a very godless industry, too.

01:09:41.580 There's that.

01:09:42.720 And again, I think there's so much more than even meets the eye.

01:09:46.060 Bree, do you have any final thoughts on all this?

01:09:49.360 No.

01:09:49.700 I concur with all of that.

01:09:52.160 Yeah.

01:09:52.240 It's just, it's incredibly sad.

01:09:54.400 And I also am praying for Dr. Cabell that he can find true, true peace.

01:10:00.080 Yeah.

01:10:00.480 Man, there's a lot more.

01:10:01.660 Maybe we'll do another segment on it or another episode on it at some point because there's a lot that we didn't get to.

01:10:07.480 But man, oh, man.

01:10:09.440 All right.

01:10:09.980 That's all we got time for today.

01:10:11.700 We will be back here tomorrow.

01:10:13.060 We'll be right back.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 22, 2024

Ep 989 ｜ Nickelodeon Has a Predator Problem

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