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The boy knows the world Stars Rider Strong, Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle used the latest episode of their replay podcast to address their experiences with convicted sex offender Brian Peck.
On Monday’s edition of Pod Meets World, family therapist Kati Morton joined the hosts in a discussion about Peck, who guest-starred in two episodes of season 5 of The boy knows the world. In the introduction to the podcast episode, Fishel explained that they felt the need to address Peck because his episodes will appear on their recap podcast and because Strong and Friedle were recently contacted for comment about Peck.
(Though he didn’t explain why, Peck’s story will likely appear in an upcoming documentary series. Silence on setabout alleged past abuse and harassment at Nickelodeon).
In Fishel’s introduction, she clarifies that she and her co-hosts were never personally victims of Peck, but that during their time at the The boy knows the world On set, the actor became friends with Strong and Friedle, “becoming part of their most trusted inner circle, despite being more than 15 years older than both of them.”
Reflecting on that relationship, Friedle explained that they were around adults all the time around that age, so it didn’t seem unusual.
“This was the kind of thing where the person hosting was a cool, fun guy who was really good at his job and who you wanted to hang out with,” Friedle said. “I saw him every day, I hung out with him every day, I talked to him every day.”
Fishel wondered if some of the adults on set avoided questioning the relationship because they didn’t want to appear homophobic toward Peck, an openly gay man.
“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, whether he’s gay or not.’ This is a boundary between adults and children,’” she said.
In 2003, six years after Peck appeared in The boy knows the world, the actor, then 43 years old, was accused of committing a lewd act on a child. He was subsequently found guilty and spent 16 months in prison. Friedle and Strong said Peck described himself as a victim and downplayed the seriousness of the offenses committed against them.
“My instinct initially was: ‘My friend, this cannot 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.”
Strong agreed: “Back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were accused of. So, in retrospect, 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 that we didn’t know about.”
So when Peck asked Friedle and Strong to support him in court, they agreed, wrote letters to the judge defending Peck, and even appeared at his sentencing.
“We’re sitting in that courtroom, on the wrong side of everything… The victim’s mother turned around and said, ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And that doesn’t change what you did to my son,’” Friedle recalled. “I sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrible in every way.”
He added: “There is 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 attribute it to my youth and that’s just how it is. It is awful. I’m going to use that for my growth as a human being, but when there’s a real victim involved and now I’m on the abuser’s side, that’s what I can’t get over and haven’t been able to get over. .”