‘Boy Meets World’ stars his former friendship with a convicted child molester

The boy knows the world Stars Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle got serious on the latest episode of their podcast. The capsule meets the world when discussing his former friendship with season 5 guest star Brian Peck, who would later be convicted of child abuse.

On Monday’s episode of The capsule meets the worldfamily therapist Kati Morton joined the trio to discuss “the difficult topics of grooming, child sexual abuse and its effects on victims” after Strong and Friedle were recently contacted for a statement about working with Peck ahead of the release of Silence on setan upcoming documentary about alleged behind-the-scenes abuse at Nickelodeon.

Peck appeared in multiple episodes of The boy knows the world in 1997 and became friends with the young Strong and Friedle, who played Shawn and Eric respectively on the ABC sitcom. A few years later, in 2003, Peck was accused of sexually abusing a child and pleaded no contest to committing a lewd act on a child. He was subsequently found guilty and spent 16 months in prison.

Both Strong and Friedle remember spending a lot of time with Peck on and off set. “I worked a lot after The boy knows the worldand this guy had become so ingrained in my life that I took him to three shows later The boy knows the world” Friedle said. “This was the kind of thing where the person hosting was a cool, funny guy who was really good at his job, and you wanted to hang out with him… I saw him every day, I hung out with “He every day, I talked to him every day.”

Fishel wondered if the fact that Peck was a gay man helped him get a “pass” from his parents to spend time with actors 20 years younger than him. “There was probably a part of them that didn’t say it because they were afraid it would be taken as homophobia, rather than ‘This is a boundary, gay or not. This is a boundary between adults and children.'” ” Fishel said.

The actors also recall how Peck manipulated them into believing he was innocent when he was accused of child abuse in 2003, and how they did not realize the seriousness of the accusations against him at the time. The hosts claim that Peck told them a version of events that reversed the situation, making him appear to be the victim, and they eventually faced the victim’s family in court to defend Peck. “My instinct initially was, ‘My friend, this can’t be. It has to be the other person’s fault,'” Friedle said. “The story makes a lot of sense because of the way he tells it.”

“He didn’t say nothing happened,” Rider said. “So when we heard about this case and learned something about it, it was always in the context of: ‘I did this, I’m guilty. I’m going to receive whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a jailbait victim.’ There was this hot guy, I just did this and he’s underage.” And we believed that story. I never heard about the other stuff because, back then, you couldn’t Google it to find out what people were accused of. So, in retrospect,” Rider speculated, “he was making a deal and admitting one thing, which is all he admitted to us, but it seems like he was being accused of a series of crimes, which we didn’t know about.”

So when Peck asked Strong and Friedle to support him in court, they agreed. They even wrote letters to the judge to defend Peck. And Friedle said the victim’s mother demanded Peck take them to court.

“‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you, and that doesn’t change what you did to my son,'” he recalled her saying, while he “just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell?’ What the hell am I doing here? It was horrible in every way. They didn’t tell us the whole story, but that doesn’t change the fact that we did it. I still can’t find the words to describe all the things I’m feeling inside of me ”

Friedle continued: “There’s a real victim here, and he turned us against the victim to where we are now on his team. That’s what, for me, I look back on as my ever-loving shame about all of this (“Being fooled by someone who is a good actor and a manipulator, I could chalk it up to being young and that’s it. It’s horrible. I’m going to use that for my growth as a human being, but When there is a real victim involved and now I’m on the abuser’s side, that’s what I cannot overcome and have not been able to overcome.

The actors end the podcast episode by saying that they hope their conversation can help even one person realize that they are being manipulated or groomed and seek appropriate help.

Peck’s representatives did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.

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