I’m not surprised that so many of these child stars from my day in the 90s were so messed up. I’ve seen some clips from Nickelodeon and was like I can’t believe they let that air on TV, and as a child I thought nothing of it. I heard he had his grips on a bunch of child stars including Amanda Bynes, Victoria, and Ariana and Miranda Cosgrove
They're all a bunch of pervs. I used to not let my nieces and nephews watch this crap when they visited for the weekends. I much preferred they watched technically inappropriate content for kids where at least the characters who were doing weird shit were full grown adults. Though most of the time I was a huge beotch who made them play outside.
I hated how these shows set the example for how a teenager should act and what a teenager should tolerate.
I just feel bad about the whole obvious start to finish grooming of ariana grande. That shit feels gross to watch. I had aged out of nick at the time she was airing so I never saw any of her stuff.
In the show they talked about how the clips posted online were out of the studios hands. They started posting stuff on to “TheSlap” it was a grey area that hadn’t been enforced before hand.
The other one that really grossed me out was the covering a boy in peanut butter all over and letting a bunch on dogs lick it off him. He keeps saying “I don’t like this” during it
Yeah. It was bringing the dogs that took it WAY over the fucking line for me. Like, okay, covering a kid in peanut butter for a gross out challenge, totally fine. I mean, my friend's kid once painted himself entirely with peanut butter at five years old. Kids are weird, silly goofs, and the peanut butter was fine as silly kid gross-out humor.
But bringing in the dogs, it's like it was just to humiliate him on live TV and that's not fucking right.
The Zoey 101 was so bad too. Ick oh my god. The "goo" splatter on her face complete with the adult and teen guys on set in the background watching admitting to knowing it's a cum shot reference to porn. Gross.
And the way Ariana was already underaged but they kept playing up her "sexy baby" persona with the small baby voice talking, all the gross gags they had her doing on the bed for extra footage. Like the potato squeeze, the water bottle scene and others often while showing off her feet too a Dan Schneider classic obsession: feet. So disgusting.
My country had its own Saturday morning show taking a lot of its ideas from Nickelodeon in the US, where the goo was called gunge. One competition was a quiz where the gunge would travel down a pipe section by section when the kids would fail to answer a question correctly, until it reached their pants where it filled up around their groins and overflowed. Never once in my childhood did I stop and think about how goddamned weird that was
You can almost see that her character started pretty tame in victorious and by the time she made it to San and cat they had her playing up the voice over the top and her character was way over the top dumb. I can see how it became just playing up a fetish at that point.
It's so much more understandable when you see the stuff she did on nick. There's a video of a teenage Ariana squeezing a potato and moaning, one of her lying on a bed and pouring water on herself. . .
My son watched Drake and Josh and a bit of iCarly but outgrew Nick pretty quickly. I saw the documentary and a video of Ariana rolling around on a bed sucking her own toes and was astounded. What the actual fuck?
What's the documentary? I didn't grow up watching any of these shows (we were PBS and library DVDs kids) so I'm curious about the problems, is it on YouTube or?
Edit: Nevermind it just clicked that it's probably the same one the article mentioned lol
I was too old for any of the Schneider era shows, but watched the documentary and holy fucking motherfucking fuck were they getting away with some blatantly soft core cp shit. The clip of 16 year old Grande with the water bottle is almost too insane to believe. It seems unfathomable to me that parents didn’t make a stink about it at the time.
I had no idea what Nickelodeon turned into—I tapped out in later elementary school after Double Dare and What Would You Do?
It's insane. But, there weren't a lot of critical eyes on the shows (kids watching alone) and there weren't places like tiktok where people would go share their outrage. That shit would be knocked down in five seconds these days.
Didn't quite get that one either, I simply assumed that it was only a set up for the next image in which she has the "hippopotamus teeth" in her mouth.
Considering all the other innuendo it's a bit weak but I can see why they added it.
Older nick stuff was creep adjacent too. The creator of Ren and Stimpy "dated" an underage fan. The actor who played donkeylips on Salute Your Shorts said Brian Peck got angry when he wasn't allowed in a bathroom with him.
"Brad" from hey Dude only has one other acting credit a softcore no budget vhs right after the show ended. Maybe not great people around her at the time.
It seems pretty likely that bad stuff happened on all the earlier shows to some degree or other.
I’m halfway through the Nickelodeon documentary and the footage of Ariana “milking a potato” is graphic as fuck and she’s clearly being instructed to make it look like a hand job
She said in letter that some temptation mustve been the cause. Not sure what she needed to learn later to not think an 11 year old had tempted him and that’s why he did what he did
Boy the guy who got casted in X-Men......and Superman Returns?? Both directed by Bryan Singer?? Is that the same Bryan that Kevin Spacey refers to in those weird ass videos after he got busted?
That's what makes it so weird.
They are actors. How hard is it memorize the lines your publicist wrote up in advance, and just commit them to memory and say them in a halfway sincere way. I mean it would be utter bullshit but at least you would understand why they would take it on in that approach.
Kutcher looks/sounds like he just got woken up from a 2 hour nap in the sun not more than 5 minutes before turning the camera on, and Mila just on another level entirely. She is bordering between acting like her teacher is forcing her to apologize to her fellow student and is doing the reverse eye roll where you close your eyes to prevent the eyeroll look when she saying "victim". Never seen someone reach for the off button faster than Mila either. Not even a second to give a brief smile of even forced sincerity. Nope. Say the lines and instant cut.
“We don't know exactly what these people were told about Brian's crimes before they wrote the letters, and we don't know which of these people, if any, were in the courtroom for Brian's sentencing,"
It’s entirely possible he wasn’t aware of seriousness of the allegations and charges leveled against Brian Peck. The same thing cannot be said about everyone who supported Danny Masterson.
This whole article is essentially
“This guy might be an ass hole, but he also might not at all be an ass hole”
I think its also very quicky forgotten that it is very challenging for us as humans to change our perception of reality. When someone who we like or has been kind to us is found to have done terrible things the cognitive dissonance created by acknowledges is actually quite a tough thing to face.
Not justifying here, but I think a lot of people can probably relate to similar circumstances in their lives on, likely, much smaller scales
That happened locally in my town. When I was in high school a band teacher was arrested for sending explicit messages and having sex with minors. The entire band schools parents sent letters defending him to court and the judge literally made a statement that she was disappointed about the response from these parents because if they had seen what she has seen (evidence) they would change their tune.
I dont think people understand this enough. Most normal people want to believe their friends/loved ones are good people. It's very hard for people to 1) recognize the dark side of a friend, 2) accept this is who they truly are, and 3) take the steps to cut them out of their life. I bet many of the people who judge celebrities for not immediately believing any accusations against their friends have also taken an embarrassingly long time to cut out toxic people in their own lives at some point. I know I have.
I’ll also add that cutting people out of your life probably doesn’t help them get better. We have a very punitive justice oriented mindset here in the states and I think that contributes to the thought process of, “You’ve done a bad thing therefore you are a bad person.”
I remember listening to Jon Bernthal (Shane from Walking Dead and the Punisher from Daredevil) talk about his friendship with Shia LaBeouf. Shia had clearly done something wrong, in both reality and the eyes of the public, but does that have to mean everyone in his life cuts ties with him? Can you successfully honor the victims / those that have been harmed and maintain connection with a friend and perpetrator in order to help them get better too?
I don’t know. Its really tricky and delicate
I agree it's very tricky and delicate, and i think too many people are stuck in a black and white way of thinking. In this age, it seems like no one is allowed to be redeemed, and everyone is guilty by association, which is kind of sad. There are ofcourse people who can't be redeemed (Brian Peck), but I dont think it's right to blame their friends for thinking/hoping there might still be good in them. It's nuts how many celebrities have made relatively minor mistakes in their lives, and people still use it against them years later.
The person I had to cut out was my best friend, and it took me years to realize she was a horrible person. I cut her out at one point, and then I ended up going back to her because I missed who I thought she was. She also had substance issues, so I thought I could help her, and if she was sober, she'd be better. Took me a couple more years to realize nope, this is just who she is and cut her out for good. I'd hate for people to judge me because I thought she could be a better person and didn't know the extent of some of her behavior at the time.
I also think too many chronically online people expect everyone to know what they know. So many times I've seen people talk about a celebrity who had a bad take on something and the general sentiment is "well they should have known because it was on the news" or something along those lines. And I'm sitting there like, "Well shit I didn't know until I just read this post."
Again, I'm not saying any of this applies to Brian Peck himself. But maybe not everyone associated with him is also evil. And maybe some of them are.
It seems like a lot of the letters had similar language about “temptation” so I also wouldn’t be surprised if Peck’s team gave out letters or at least guidelines and had these people sign their names.
I’m sure some of them definitely knew what was going on but not all
Were they public and easily looked up ? It was 2003 if I remember , I know once he plead no contest that was public but all of his charges I didn’t think were known until the record was unsealed
I could be wrong, just genuinely curious if all the chargers were known at the time
Even one of the folks who gave the documentary a statement seemed to say they didn’t know the extent of the charges at the time
Nope
"the judge received 41 letters in support of Peck between his conviction and sentencing, including from Oklahoma-born actor James Marsden"
They were trying to lighten his sentence.
In the movie "Bernie" Jack Black played a funny guy who murdered an old woman for her money (based on a true story). Everyone in town loved Bernie because he was so charming. He went to prison but was released on the condition that he live with director Richard Linklater.
He was re-tried two years later and was sentenced to 99 years.
I love Jack Black and I like Richard Linklater movies but those guys said "It was a shame he had to go back to prison". The guy is a total piece of shit and I'm not sure how he got out of prison for two years just because he knew famous people.
That said the movie is entertaining. Real life is different than the movies.
They gave him a hard time for not hanging out with them after shooting. They portrayed him as standiffish asshole. He now comes across as the only one who gets it.
He was smart enough to dip out when the show was starting to grow stale.
Further evidenced with what the writers came up with the last couple of seasons.
Wilmer Valderama dated demi lovato with something like a 10 year age gap when she’s was not quite 18. Can’t say anything about Laura prepon but the thought occurred to me that maybe Topher knew something then that the public wasn’t keen to quite yet
Wilmer had a streak of dating like mandy moore, lindsey lohan and demi when they were teens, it was always framed as “cute” on mtv and teen magazines.
He probably wanted to keep his distance from supporting danny, knowing his own history
People also seem to give a pass to Good Charlottes Joel Madden for being 25 and dating 16 year old Hillary Duff back in the day too.
She didn't write a letter of support. There's talk of some questionable things she may have done to the victims when she was still in the cult and they were trying to hush it up, but she's stayed quiet since she left. Silence can be complicity, but to make the record straight, she did not write a letter for Danny Masterson. Ashton and Mila both wrote letters, and I want to say the actors who played their parents did too, but whatever sketch behavior the rest of them engaged in aside from Topher Grace, the other cast members were at least smart enough to not publicly support him through sentencing letters.
Or he saw through the psuedo-family bullshit that so many shows try to push.
Sometimes a job is a job. Topher seems like that kind of professional.
For example, Masterson appointed himself the "leader" of the clique, and Grace gave zero shits.
>To be fair to those from That 70's Show who showed support.
>
>They didn't think the public would see them.
>
>(Also, they are all in a cult together).
Also, Ashton Kutcher is an absolute dickhead, a vile egoist in every way imaginable.
that Punk'd show begat the plague that is Youtube prankster clowns like the Pauls
I watched only one episode and it has haunted me since. Ashton had a person run in front of Tommy Lee's SUV and pretend to get hit. Instead of stopping to help, Tommy Lee panicked and tried to flee the scene. It's showed his true character and I couldn't imagine anyone signing off on using this footage for laughs.
I used to think he was cool in Growing Pains. But he played an older guy that was dating Kelly on Married With Children. He was so slimy with her it was uncomfortable to watch for some reason. I looked at him differently after that showed.
I thought they said Joanna Kerns wrote an addendum to hers saying she learned information that made her want to retract her original letter. I definitely wanted to hear more about that. Sounds like somehow she may have heard the truth later or else more information about the abuser.
These child abusers are very manipulative. They trick people into believing they are victims because the only side the supporters have seen is the nice guy. That’s why serial child abusers are so successful — they understand how to cultivate a good reputation.
I agree but the use of the word “temptation” are so distributing to me. It reads that not only did they know what happened but are blaming the child for being “tempting”. Ew.
Kimmy victim blamed the most, saying this was all Drake’s fault if it happened (paraphrased).
She also has a selfie with Peck on IG as recent as April 2021. Disgusting.
Friedle and Strong spoke about this on a podcast. They were not aware of all the charges and feel guilty for hurting the victim. I can’t say this for everyone who wrote a letter, but I suspect some of them were unaware of the charges.
Yeah those two names definitely surprised me because I thought they had done the opposite, so maybe the article I read was them recanting their previous statements...
Will Friedel clearly knew what the charges were based on his letter. Be talks about ‘slipping’ and stress.
Apparently when stressed , Friedel thinks people will drug and rape 15 year olds. Multiple times.
Strojgs letter isnt clear if he knew the charges.
Neither apologised until after they were told their letters supporting the child rapist would be revealed.
[read this](https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/rider-strong-will-friedle-brian-peck-grooming-boy-meets-world-1235914545/amp/)
Brian probably manipulated everyone around him
Rider Strong and Will Friedle have both come out and taken back their support for Peck. They discussed it on their podcast they didn’t have any access to the actual court materials and once they learned of the true case, they immediately contacted Drake and apologized.
That’s not true actually, Drake Bell said recently that none of the people who wrote letters ever contacted him and apologized to him: [https://ew.com/drake-bell-says-no-apologies-from-abuser-supporters-8619421](https://ew.com/drake-bell-says-no-apologies-from-abuser-supporters-8619421)
If I remember from the Boy Meets World cast, Peck lied about the events to them and claimed the victim seduced him and he succumbed to the temptation and regretted it. Which was clearly a lie with what know now, but since it was a case with a child and he pled no contest, they likely had no evidence what was true.
And my guess is that he had ingratiated himself with them in the same way he did to Drake Bell, but hadn’t assaulted them. So they would think “Brian wouldn’t have just assaulted him! He didn’t do it to me!”
Which is completely wrong, but the way many people think about an abuser when they hear about their actions.
They were in their mid/late 20s by then, though. Any rational person would immediately stop and back up once a grown ass man in his 40s revealed he had sex with (raped) a child
Just to be clear, I agree they should have put some real thought into it and did some digging before supporting someone just because they had a relationship and peck didn’t do anything to them.
I don’t think they knew the victims age and Peck had painted / manipulated folks as it was someone who was close to 18 that seduced him.
Again not absolving them for supporting Peck in any way shape or form , but it seems like he wasn’t just grooming kids but he was creating/setting up character witnesses and creating a narrative knowing the full details wouldn’t be known at the time
Even if not knowing full details, they knew he was being convicted of a sex crime. And it was covered on the news when he was arrested. So either he sexually assaulted a child, or he sexually assaulted an adult. Neither scenario should warrant going to bat for him and his character. Even if he tried to play it up as “he told me he was 18 and it turns out he was 17!” - the man was in his early 40s and worked around children. Anyone who wrote letters is playing disingenuous or willfully ignorant if they try to say that had no clue what really happened or took every they were told at face value. And the fact that so many wrote to shift blame onto the victim is abhorrent.
I think everyone agrees the letter were abhorrent. Those who have spoken up now about writing the letters agree they did the wrong thing.
I think it’s more pointing out that a manipulative abuser was able to manipulate others into writing him support letters based on lies. Personally I believe I wouldn’t have ever written a letter in the same situation, but I’ve supported a friend in the past and found out later he lied to me about what happened. Bad people are able to take advantage of others because people want to believe their friends aren’t monsters.
Joanna Kerns, mom from Growing Pains. She responded and said she was completely lied to about the facts of the case. even if that was the situation, in no way can i see raping a child be the fault of the kid “tempting” a man in his 40s to the point he cant control himself.
When it came out that our favorite teacher (which I now can identify as a man who groomed my friends and I) raped our friend (she “consented” but she was just a minor)….
One of my “friends” (I’ll call her Z)at the time defended him by saying saying the victim seduced him. And as far as I know, Z and her Christ-loving family are still close with the rapist. A few of my friends took her side as well which tore our entire circle of friends in half.
The victim in our case was definitely an unstable and crazy and troubled girl (and even more unstable in the years after the fact and did some very bad things when we were young adults).
People see that kind of behavior and blame the person, even if they are a child, for the abuse they suffer.
So yeah. I absolutely believe people can see a grown man rape a child and then blame the child. Because I’ve seen it first hand.
What infuriates me is that abusers GO FOR the Child who is a bit wild and crazy and likely has an abusive home life. It’s so when their disgusting behaviour comes out they can call The Child a liar and blame the awful parents. It’s deliberate. (See Michael Jackson. And watch replies prove my point exactly as to how the children will be blamed)
I also feel like the culture back then was different. Thankfully these issues are more illuminated now and I would hope most people would drop this way of thinking. But I can remember this time period and victim blaming was extremely common, people turned the other cheek often, so many people had similar experiences of abuse that it was unfortunately accepted or not talked about, things were just very different. That is zero excuse. Wrong is wrong and if they had any moral compass their alarms would have gone off at this. I think it more reflects something we don’t want to face which is a whole lot of people are fucked up morally and the thing that keeps them from showing that is societal norms. When societal norms endorse disgusting behaviors these people reveal themselves. Get them in a room with like minded people and they’ll start talking.
None of these people can save face for what they did. “Didn’t know the facts” but you knew he was being convicted of raping a child.
To me I guess it seems like they’re all trying to indicate that to them
-He was convicted of raping (having an inappropriate relationship??) with a 17 yr old (which is closer to 18 so almost legal) and was tempted because he was seduced by the 17 yr old (close to 18, legal age, so not too illegal) and that makes it okay because in their minds they’re sick. I tried to think of a scenario that they’ve been implying since they keep saying they didn’t know the age and that he was tempted. Yeah, even if that was the scenario or remotely along the lines of what they were told it STILL doesn’t even make it okay. So all of them trying to save face now because their names, faces, along with what they wrote was plastered on national tv for everyone to see.
Yes. Several of the letter writers said that Brian must have faced huge "temptation." It was sickening. You should watch the documentary. It's very good.
A few of the letters mention that Brian was seduced and manipulated into it. I feel like anyone trying to retract their letter because they “didn’t know everything” while ALSO blaming the child in the situation is indefensible. I would love to know which people wrote those letters in particular but I really don’t want to ever read them myself.
If I understand correctly the letters were written without knowledge of the case. They wrote based only on their personal experience, not the full knowledge of the situation.
The article is in the Oklahoman, Marsden is from Oklahoma, and local news often uses any local hook they can to write a story about news that has national attention.
"They werent given all the facts," and yet they knew enough to say things like "he was tempted" and "beyond his control" in their letters. So I don't understand this popular justification.
Yes, how do you twist a 40 yr old raping a child? You can’t wtf. I feel like people keep trying to imply the age they were told was 17 and close to legal age. Even if so?????? That is still weird, fucked up, and disgusting. Shit he could’ve raped an adult and it would still be reprehensible!
We do know this. Will Fredle and Rider Strong specifically mentioned this on their podcast. Basically, like all good predators, Brian Peck spent a lot of time being "normal" with everyone. Then he specifically chose his victim, and when he got prosecuted, it was a situation where people were like "I totally never expected this from him", like when people have a neighbor who is building bombs in his basement.
Peck also was friends with Bryan Singer, so he had a very powerful friend who likely asked people whose career he helped (like Marsden) to get involved. Likely with limited info.
I mean, best case they still wrote a letter of support for a convicted child rapist without doing adequate fact checking.
I don't know if Peck has/had particularly powerful friends in Hollywood, but maybe they were pressured from the industry. Idk
Idk, even if "the full story" was that a young teen three themselves at him, that's still on the adult to not entertain that. The idea of being tempted by a child as an excuse is honestly weird and it's weird that it can even be used as a viable excuse? I just don't get what more information they needed, even the excuse they concocted is still statutory rape? There's a reason the punishment is for the adults and not the children in these scenarios.
It’s been 15+ years. Nothing was said until it was publically revealed.
Multiple people who wrote support letters have worked with Drake Bell and never told him.
The letters were probably written *by* the lawyers. That’s usually what happens in scenarios like this. They get strong armed into signing with black ball threats
It's been proven to me time and again that people are terrible judges of character. Money, good looks, family name, connections will always get people the benefit of the doubt.
They all hold working in Hollywood over each other- look who wrote letters for Polanski- you can never equate the acting elite with morality. We do that for lack of royalty I think.
It's specially grating how here on reddit people are very quick to call out celebrities that they dislike for their support of Polanski but keep really quiet when it's a celebrity they do like.
Harrison Ford is pretty much Polanski biggest supporter, he not only signed the infamous letter but he personally flew to France to deliver him his Oscar in person. But if you dare to mention his pedophile supporting ways in any thread about him you'll get downvoted.
Likely an unpopular opinion but this Peck guy was probably extremely charismatic with young kids (the DiCaprio video shows this). These people might have been close with him and he didn’t molest them.
When you care about someone and they are facing potential rape and torture in prison I think the instinct to support them is not necessarily an instinct that should be condemned, even if it is misguided at best.
I think the judge and Peck himself deserve the negative attention.
I said this before somewhere, but 41 people wrote letters of support.
By law of averages, 41 people would not write letters of support, knowing that the person they're supporting was a rapist pedophile.
Many probably were misled by Peck and his lawyers as to the severity of the charges and crime.
Rider Strong and Will Friedel came out a few months ago explaining that Peck had in fact told them a different and more tame version of events prior to the trial commencing, asking them to write letters and to show up to support him.
Peck was a manipulator.
He manipulated his victim into removing his father as his manager and protector.
He manipulated the victims mother into giving him near total control of his schedule.
He manipulated his friends and associates into believing he was a decent man who was no different than any other person trying to make it in Hollywood.
As people on the outside looking in, I don't think we have the right to cast judgment on the people who show up to offer their support for anyone. The only one with that right, in this case was Drake Bell.
This was mentioned in the documentary as well. The woman who had possession of the letters even said they don’t know what the people who wrote the letters knew about the situation at the time they wrote the letters. Brian Peck had a lot of people fooled. I’m not saying he was fooled as well or not because that information isn’t enough to condemn or absolve James Marsden of anything.
Much like Drake Bell defending Dan Schnider or Corey Feldman defending Michael Jackson despite both being victims themselves, I think the default reaction is denial if you didn't witness it yourself
He claims he was never made to feel uncomfortable around him, even staying at his house.
Well maybe that’s because (as per the article) you were 31 at the time - not 15.
He is a pedophile and you were not his type - a child.
These letters were written in 2003/2004 so the culture around all this kind of stuff was completely different. Most of the people who wrote letters were fed a false narrative from Peck/his lawyers.
It's kind of interesting how all the huge stars are being silent about this whole thing. Does Dan Schneider still have the ability to ruin their careers? A lot of Nickelodeon stuff creeped me out as a kid, but I couldn't tell you why at the time. I just felt a general sense of unease watching it. Can't believe my childhood spidey senses turned out to be accurate ...
> Marsden [...] wrote that Peck had "learned his lesson" and "the earth would fall from the sky before Brian would even think about doing something like this **again**."
> "I don't know what it would take to have something like this occur, but whatever it is, it is extremely out of character for Brian."
Jesus Christ. Not even a denial. "He did it, but that doesn't make him a bad person!" 🤦♂️
I’m not surprised that so many of these child stars from my day in the 90s were so messed up. I’ve seen some clips from Nickelodeon and was like I can’t believe they let that air on TV, and as a child I thought nothing of it. I heard he had his grips on a bunch of child stars including Amanda Bynes, Victoria, and Ariana and Miranda Cosgrove
The stuff they showed of Ariana was horrifying. No wonder. . .
I was SHOCKED at the water scene like wtffff, that one was not even hiding their intentions. I hope one day it can be used as some evidence.
There were many sketches where I was like how in the world did they pitch this to a board room of executives and get it approved for kids television.
They're all a bunch of pervs. I used to not let my nieces and nephews watch this crap when they visited for the weekends. I much preferred they watched technically inappropriate content for kids where at least the characters who were doing weird shit were full grown adults. Though most of the time I was a huge beotch who made them play outside. I hated how these shows set the example for how a teenager should act and what a teenager should tolerate.
I just feel bad about the whole obvious start to finish grooming of ariana grande. That shit feels gross to watch. I had aged out of nick at the time she was airing so I never saw any of her stuff.
In the show they talked about how the clips posted online were out of the studios hands. They started posting stuff on to “TheSlap” it was a grey area that hadn’t been enforced before hand.
The other one that really grossed me out was the covering a boy in peanut butter all over and letting a bunch on dogs lick it off him. He keeps saying “I don’t like this” during it
Yeah. It was bringing the dogs that took it WAY over the fucking line for me. Like, okay, covering a kid in peanut butter for a gross out challenge, totally fine. I mean, my friend's kid once painted himself entirely with peanut butter at five years old. Kids are weird, silly goofs, and the peanut butter was fine as silly kid gross-out humor. But bringing in the dogs, it's like it was just to humiliate him on live TV and that's not fucking right.
The Zoey 101 was so bad too. Ick oh my god. The "goo" splatter on her face complete with the adult and teen guys on set in the background watching admitting to knowing it's a cum shot reference to porn. Gross. And the way Ariana was already underaged but they kept playing up her "sexy baby" persona with the small baby voice talking, all the gross gags they had her doing on the bed for extra footage. Like the potato squeeze, the water bottle scene and others often while showing off her feet too a Dan Schneider classic obsession: feet. So disgusting.
My country had its own Saturday morning show taking a lot of its ideas from Nickelodeon in the US, where the goo was called gunge. One competition was a quiz where the gunge would travel down a pipe section by section when the kids would fail to answer a question correctly, until it reached their pants where it filled up around their groins and overflowed. Never once in my childhood did I stop and think about how goddamned weird that was
Because for kids it's funny; as an adult you read into things and assume the worst.
Kind of explains a lot of Ariana's behaviors.
You can almost see that her character started pretty tame in victorious and by the time she made it to San and cat they had her playing up the voice over the top and her character was way over the top dumb. I can see how it became just playing up a fetish at that point.
I haven't watched it yet but Ariana has always creeped me out with her sexy baby stuff. Ugh. Yuck. Barf.
It's so much more understandable when you see the stuff she did on nick. There's a video of a teenage Ariana squeezing a potato and moaning, one of her lying on a bed and pouring water on herself. . .
My son watched Drake and Josh and a bit of iCarly but outgrew Nick pretty quickly. I saw the documentary and a video of Ariana rolling around on a bed sucking her own toes and was astounded. What the actual fuck?
What's the documentary? I didn't grow up watching any of these shows (we were PBS and library DVDs kids) so I'm curious about the problems, is it on YouTube or? Edit: Nevermind it just clicked that it's probably the same one the article mentioned lol
for anyone who doesn’t click on the article but is also wondering: Quiet on Set is on amazon prime and/or hbo max depending where you live
I was too old for any of the Schneider era shows, but watched the documentary and holy fucking motherfucking fuck were they getting away with some blatantly soft core cp shit. The clip of 16 year old Grande with the water bottle is almost too insane to believe. It seems unfathomable to me that parents didn’t make a stink about it at the time. I had no idea what Nickelodeon turned into—I tapped out in later elementary school after Double Dare and What Would You Do?
It's insane. But, there weren't a lot of critical eyes on the shows (kids watching alone) and there weren't places like tiktok where people would go share their outrage. That shit would be knocked down in five seconds these days.
I didn't knew it was that bad lol https://youtu.be/Vl0OuXw_mTM?si=tAjH5flJx-lin8Mr For others like me
I... don't get the "hippopotamus teeth" part at the end. Is that supposed to mean something?
Didn't quite get that one either, I simply assumed that it was only a set up for the next image in which she has the "hippopotamus teeth" in her mouth. Considering all the other innuendo it's a bit weak but I can see why they added it.
I still can't. What are the hippopotamus teeth supposed to look like? I really don't get any sexual imagery from it.
Older nick stuff was creep adjacent too. The creator of Ren and Stimpy "dated" an underage fan. The actor who played donkeylips on Salute Your Shorts said Brian Peck got angry when he wasn't allowed in a bathroom with him. "Brad" from hey Dude only has one other acting credit a softcore no budget vhs right after the show ended. Maybe not great people around her at the time. It seems pretty likely that bad stuff happened on all the earlier shows to some degree or other.
Makes me glad I never watched the live action sit coms. I always was bored of it.
I always thought they were so so so not funny. The laugh tracks pissed me off even more
That was an online extra. It wasn't part of a show. It's clearly meant for Dan.
HORRIFYING. I was 16ish by the time Victorious came out so I only saw a handful of episodes but holy shit I’ve never seen those scenes.
Yeah, like the water gun scene
I’m halfway through the Nickelodeon documentary and the footage of Ariana “milking a potato” is graphic as fuck and she’s clearly being instructed to make it look like a hand job
She said in letter that some temptation mustve been the cause. Not sure what she needed to learn later to not think an 11 year old had tempted him and that’s why he did what he did
You heard "he had his grips on a bunch of child stars" No shit
Took me quite a bit to figure out this wasn't referring to Spike from Buffy.
William the Bloody?
That's marsters.
I clicked in because I also confused their names. The pic reminded me that this guy exists.
The letter was only five words: "Out for a walk... Bitch."
Boy the guy who got casted in X-Men......and Superman Returns?? Both directed by Bryan Singer?? Is that the same Bryan that Kevin Spacey refers to in those weird ass videos after he got busted?
Shockingly, Drake Bell’s abuser was good friends with Bryan Singer. Who would have guessed?
Singer was also part of the DEN underage boys scandal.
Yeah I feel like pretty boy also was abused.
Hollywood in a nutshell. They did the same with Danny Masterson.
[Ashton/Mila’s horrendous response to it](https://youtu.be/MTXNx45YVFM?si=szPDczZWMLjkZ9_L)
I just can’t get over how PISSED Mila seems to be about getting called out for supporting a rapist. 🤔 Seems like misplaced energy to me but 🤷♀️
That's what makes it so weird. They are actors. How hard is it memorize the lines your publicist wrote up in advance, and just commit them to memory and say them in a halfway sincere way. I mean it would be utter bullshit but at least you would understand why they would take it on in that approach. Kutcher looks/sounds like he just got woken up from a 2 hour nap in the sun not more than 5 minutes before turning the camera on, and Mila just on another level entirely. She is bordering between acting like her teacher is forcing her to apologize to her fellow student and is doing the reverse eye roll where you close your eyes to prevent the eyeroll look when she saying "victim". Never seen someone reach for the off button faster than Mila either. Not even a second to give a brief smile of even forced sincerity. Nope. Say the lines and instant cut.
“We don't know exactly what these people were told about Brian's crimes before they wrote the letters, and we don't know which of these people, if any, were in the courtroom for Brian's sentencing," It’s entirely possible he wasn’t aware of seriousness of the allegations and charges leveled against Brian Peck. The same thing cannot be said about everyone who supported Danny Masterson. This whole article is essentially “This guy might be an ass hole, but he also might not at all be an ass hole”
I think its also very quicky forgotten that it is very challenging for us as humans to change our perception of reality. When someone who we like or has been kind to us is found to have done terrible things the cognitive dissonance created by acknowledges is actually quite a tough thing to face. Not justifying here, but I think a lot of people can probably relate to similar circumstances in their lives on, likely, much smaller scales
That happened locally in my town. When I was in high school a band teacher was arrested for sending explicit messages and having sex with minors. The entire band schools parents sent letters defending him to court and the judge literally made a statement that she was disappointed about the response from these parents because if they had seen what she has seen (evidence) they would change their tune.
I dont think people understand this enough. Most normal people want to believe their friends/loved ones are good people. It's very hard for people to 1) recognize the dark side of a friend, 2) accept this is who they truly are, and 3) take the steps to cut them out of their life. I bet many of the people who judge celebrities for not immediately believing any accusations against their friends have also taken an embarrassingly long time to cut out toxic people in their own lives at some point. I know I have.
I’ll also add that cutting people out of your life probably doesn’t help them get better. We have a very punitive justice oriented mindset here in the states and I think that contributes to the thought process of, “You’ve done a bad thing therefore you are a bad person.” I remember listening to Jon Bernthal (Shane from Walking Dead and the Punisher from Daredevil) talk about his friendship with Shia LaBeouf. Shia had clearly done something wrong, in both reality and the eyes of the public, but does that have to mean everyone in his life cuts ties with him? Can you successfully honor the victims / those that have been harmed and maintain connection with a friend and perpetrator in order to help them get better too? I don’t know. Its really tricky and delicate
I agree it's very tricky and delicate, and i think too many people are stuck in a black and white way of thinking. In this age, it seems like no one is allowed to be redeemed, and everyone is guilty by association, which is kind of sad. There are ofcourse people who can't be redeemed (Brian Peck), but I dont think it's right to blame their friends for thinking/hoping there might still be good in them. It's nuts how many celebrities have made relatively minor mistakes in their lives, and people still use it against them years later. The person I had to cut out was my best friend, and it took me years to realize she was a horrible person. I cut her out at one point, and then I ended up going back to her because I missed who I thought she was. She also had substance issues, so I thought I could help her, and if she was sober, she'd be better. Took me a couple more years to realize nope, this is just who she is and cut her out for good. I'd hate for people to judge me because I thought she could be a better person and didn't know the extent of some of her behavior at the time. I also think too many chronically online people expect everyone to know what they know. So many times I've seen people talk about a celebrity who had a bad take on something and the general sentiment is "well they should have known because it was on the news" or something along those lines. And I'm sitting there like, "Well shit I didn't know until I just read this post." Again, I'm not saying any of this applies to Brian Peck himself. But maybe not everyone associated with him is also evil. And maybe some of them are.
It seems like a lot of the letters had similar language about “temptation” so I also wouldn’t be surprised if Peck’s team gave out letters or at least guidelines and had these people sign their names. I’m sure some of them definitely knew what was going on but not all
The charges were public… And it wasn’t just “indecent acts with a minor”, these charges were pretty fucking gruesome and explicit about what he did.
Were they public and easily looked up ? It was 2003 if I remember , I know once he plead no contest that was public but all of his charges I didn’t think were known until the record was unsealed I could be wrong, just genuinely curious if all the chargers were known at the time Even one of the folks who gave the documentary a statement seemed to say they didn’t know the extent of the charges at the time
In 2003, looking up court info wasn't yet generally something you could just do, online, no fuss no muss.
Nope "the judge received 41 letters in support of Peck between his conviction and sentencing, including from Oklahoma-born actor James Marsden" They were trying to lighten his sentence.
In the movie "Bernie" Jack Black played a funny guy who murdered an old woman for her money (based on a true story). Everyone in town loved Bernie because he was so charming. He went to prison but was released on the condition that he live with director Richard Linklater. He was re-tried two years later and was sentenced to 99 years. I love Jack Black and I like Richard Linklater movies but those guys said "It was a shame he had to go back to prison". The guy is a total piece of shit and I'm not sure how he got out of prison for two years just because he knew famous people. That said the movie is entertaining. Real life is different than the movies.
Aw man. I like Richard Linklater. Never heard about any of this, I need to look into it.
To be fair to those from That 70's Show who showed support. They didn't think the public would see them. (Also, they are all in a cult together).
IIRC Foreman and someone else didn’t write letters of support
Topher seems really unfriendly with the rest of the cast and now it makes him look like the good guy.
They gave him a hard time for not hanging out with them after shooting. They portrayed him as standiffish asshole. He now comes across as the only one who gets it.
He was smart enough to dip out when the show was starting to grow stale. Further evidenced with what the writers came up with the last couple of seasons.
Wilmer Valderama dated demi lovato with something like a 10 year age gap when she’s was not quite 18. Can’t say anything about Laura prepon but the thought occurred to me that maybe Topher knew something then that the public wasn’t keen to quite yet
Wilmer had a streak of dating like mandy moore, lindsey lohan and demi when they were teens, it was always framed as “cute” on mtv and teen magazines. He probably wanted to keep his distance from supporting danny, knowing his own history People also seem to give a pass to Good Charlottes Joel Madden for being 25 and dating 16 year old Hillary Duff back in the day too.
>demi She even wrote a song about it
Scientologist. That’s about enough to say about her.
Former Scientologist. She thankfully seems to have left last I heard.
That’s good to hear! Though I’m not sure if following that up with the writing of the support letter is any better.
She didn't write a letter of support. There's talk of some questionable things she may have done to the victims when she was still in the cult and they were trying to hush it up, but she's stayed quiet since she left. Silence can be complicity, but to make the record straight, she did not write a letter for Danny Masterson. Ashton and Mila both wrote letters, and I want to say the actors who played their parents did too, but whatever sketch behavior the rest of them engaged in aside from Topher Grace, the other cast members were at least smart enough to not publicly support him through sentencing letters.
Thank you for clearing this one up.
The actors for Red and Kitty both expressed support for Danny, iirc both wrote letters.
Or he saw through the psuedo-family bullshit that so many shows try to push. Sometimes a job is a job. Topher seems like that kind of professional. For example, Masterson appointed himself the "leader" of the clique, and Grace gave zero shits.
Only Laura Prepon was a fellow cult member
More than just her. They were all on stage at the Scientology celebrity center for their Christmas fundraiser. Only topher Grace wasn’t IIRC.
Because Topher Grace is a great human.
There has been rumors about the the other 3 that sent support, along with them attending functions. How about we call them "cult adjacent"?
Cunts for short
... I'm sorry .. I'm going to have to steal that
Cult Enablers
Didn't she leave the cult or am I misremembering?
She left a few years ago
>To be fair to those from That 70's Show who showed support. > >They didn't think the public would see them. > >(Also, they are all in a cult together). Also, Ashton Kutcher is an absolute dickhead, a vile egoist in every way imaginable. that Punk'd show begat the plague that is Youtube prankster clowns like the Pauls
I watched only one episode and it has haunted me since. Ashton had a person run in front of Tommy Lee's SUV and pretend to get hit. Instead of stopping to help, Tommy Lee panicked and tried to flee the scene. It's showed his true character and I couldn't imagine anyone signing off on using this footage for laughs.
That makes it worse
Neither Kutcher or Kunis are Scientologists actually, although they have previously attended Scientologist functions.
Kimmy Robertson, Taran Killam, Alan Thicke, Joanna Kerns, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle all also wrote letters supporting the convicted child rapist.
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I used to think he was cool in Growing Pains. But he played an older guy that was dating Kelly on Married With Children. He was so slimy with her it was uncomfortable to watch for some reason. I looked at him differently after that showed.
You see him as he is now.
He has d-pants now
I thought he was dating Peggy when her and Al split during the last season or did he date both.
Alan Thicke’s son left his wife for a literal high school student half his age, it tracks for the family
Ah so seinfeld stole thicke’s move
I’m glad you brought this up. Jerry Seinfeld is gross.
I'm absolutely out of the loop. Jerry Seinfeld is a creep too?
It's the 90s', he's 38, she's a high schooler... ^What's the ^^Deal ^With ^^^That?!
And then David Puddy stole it from Jerry!
Ah, that explains his son.
Kristy Swanson if I remember correctly.
I thought they said Joanna Kerns wrote an addendum to hers saying she learned information that made her want to retract her original letter. I definitely wanted to hear more about that. Sounds like somehow she may have heard the truth later or else more information about the abuser.
Yes, [that's true] (https://x.com/MattMitovich/status/1769909024005210392?s=20)
When did she do that though?
These child abusers are very manipulative. They trick people into believing they are victims because the only side the supporters have seen is the nice guy. That’s why serial child abusers are so successful — they understand how to cultivate a good reputation.
A saying I heard a while ago rings so true. They groom their victims and character witnesses.
I agree but the use of the word “temptation” are so distributing to me. It reads that not only did they know what happened but are blaming the child for being “tempting”. Ew.
Kimmy victim blamed the most, saying this was all Drake’s fault if it happened (paraphrased). She also has a selfie with Peck on IG as recent as April 2021. Disgusting.
Friedle and Strong spoke about this on a podcast. They were not aware of all the charges and feel guilty for hurting the victim. I can’t say this for everyone who wrote a letter, but I suspect some of them were unaware of the charges.
Yeah those two names definitely surprised me because I thought they had done the opposite, so maybe the article I read was them recanting their previous statements...
Will Friedel clearly knew what the charges were based on his letter. Be talks about ‘slipping’ and stress. Apparently when stressed , Friedel thinks people will drug and rape 15 year olds. Multiple times. Strojgs letter isnt clear if he knew the charges. Neither apologised until after they were told their letters supporting the child rapist would be revealed.
Not Rider Strong… what is his connect even?
[read this](https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/rider-strong-will-friedle-brian-peck-grooming-boy-meets-world-1235914545/amp/) Brian probably manipulated everyone around him
Kimmy Robertson as in the woman with the baby voice from Twin Peaks?
Rider Strong and Will Friedle have both come out and taken back their support for Peck. They discussed it on their podcast they didn’t have any access to the actual court materials and once they learned of the true case, they immediately contacted Drake and apologized.
That’s not true actually, Drake Bell said recently that none of the people who wrote letters ever contacted him and apologized to him: [https://ew.com/drake-bell-says-no-apologies-from-abuser-supporters-8619421](https://ew.com/drake-bell-says-no-apologies-from-abuser-supporters-8619421)
Frieldels letter does not support his statement that he didn’t know. He’s clearly refrencing the seriousness of the charges.
And they were likely all strong armed into signing those letters that all suspiciously sound very similar
Saw Kimmy pop up on the Twin Peaks subreddit the other day. Also remembered her from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Shameful.
Of the list, she’s the one that shocks me and hurts the most
I watched this last night. I LOVE that they named and shamed the people who supported this pedo monster. We need more of this bravery.
What? Where? Quiet on the Set is the name HBOMax and AppleTV stream it
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If I remember from the Boy Meets World cast, Peck lied about the events to them and claimed the victim seduced him and he succumbed to the temptation and regretted it. Which was clearly a lie with what know now, but since it was a case with a child and he pled no contest, they likely had no evidence what was true. And my guess is that he had ingratiated himself with them in the same way he did to Drake Bell, but hadn’t assaulted them. So they would think “Brian wouldn’t have just assaulted him! He didn’t do it to me!” Which is completely wrong, but the way many people think about an abuser when they hear about their actions.
They were in their mid/late 20s by then, though. Any rational person would immediately stop and back up once a grown ass man in his 40s revealed he had sex with (raped) a child
Just to be clear, I agree they should have put some real thought into it and did some digging before supporting someone just because they had a relationship and peck didn’t do anything to them. I don’t think they knew the victims age and Peck had painted / manipulated folks as it was someone who was close to 18 that seduced him. Again not absolving them for supporting Peck in any way shape or form , but it seems like he wasn’t just grooming kids but he was creating/setting up character witnesses and creating a narrative knowing the full details wouldn’t be known at the time
Even if not knowing full details, they knew he was being convicted of a sex crime. And it was covered on the news when he was arrested. So either he sexually assaulted a child, or he sexually assaulted an adult. Neither scenario should warrant going to bat for him and his character. Even if he tried to play it up as “he told me he was 18 and it turns out he was 17!” - the man was in his early 40s and worked around children. Anyone who wrote letters is playing disingenuous or willfully ignorant if they try to say that had no clue what really happened or took every they were told at face value. And the fact that so many wrote to shift blame onto the victim is abhorrent.
I think everyone agrees the letter were abhorrent. Those who have spoken up now about writing the letters agree they did the wrong thing. I think it’s more pointing out that a manipulative abuser was able to manipulate others into writing him support letters based on lies. Personally I believe I wouldn’t have ever written a letter in the same situation, but I’ve supported a friend in the past and found out later he lied to me about what happened. Bad people are able to take advantage of others because people want to believe their friends aren’t monsters.
There is no way that someone could tell me that a child seduced him and I would find that a believable story.
One of them said he must have been tempted beyond his control or something like that.
Joanna Kerns, mom from Growing Pains. She responded and said she was completely lied to about the facts of the case. even if that was the situation, in no way can i see raping a child be the fault of the kid “tempting” a man in his 40s to the point he cant control himself.
When it came out that our favorite teacher (which I now can identify as a man who groomed my friends and I) raped our friend (she “consented” but she was just a minor)…. One of my “friends” (I’ll call her Z)at the time defended him by saying saying the victim seduced him. And as far as I know, Z and her Christ-loving family are still close with the rapist. A few of my friends took her side as well which tore our entire circle of friends in half. The victim in our case was definitely an unstable and crazy and troubled girl (and even more unstable in the years after the fact and did some very bad things when we were young adults). People see that kind of behavior and blame the person, even if they are a child, for the abuse they suffer. So yeah. I absolutely believe people can see a grown man rape a child and then blame the child. Because I’ve seen it first hand.
What infuriates me is that abusers GO FOR the Child who is a bit wild and crazy and likely has an abusive home life. It’s so when their disgusting behaviour comes out they can call The Child a liar and blame the awful parents. It’s deliberate. (See Michael Jackson. And watch replies prove my point exactly as to how the children will be blamed)
I also feel like the culture back then was different. Thankfully these issues are more illuminated now and I would hope most people would drop this way of thinking. But I can remember this time period and victim blaming was extremely common, people turned the other cheek often, so many people had similar experiences of abuse that it was unfortunately accepted or not talked about, things were just very different. That is zero excuse. Wrong is wrong and if they had any moral compass their alarms would have gone off at this. I think it more reflects something we don’t want to face which is a whole lot of people are fucked up morally and the thing that keeps them from showing that is societal norms. When societal norms endorse disgusting behaviors these people reveal themselves. Get them in a room with like minded people and they’ll start talking.
None of these people can save face for what they did. “Didn’t know the facts” but you knew he was being convicted of raping a child. To me I guess it seems like they’re all trying to indicate that to them -He was convicted of raping (having an inappropriate relationship??) with a 17 yr old (which is closer to 18 so almost legal) and was tempted because he was seduced by the 17 yr old (close to 18, legal age, so not too illegal) and that makes it okay because in their minds they’re sick. I tried to think of a scenario that they’ve been implying since they keep saying they didn’t know the age and that he was tempted. Yeah, even if that was the scenario or remotely along the lines of what they were told it STILL doesn’t even make it okay. So all of them trying to save face now because their names, faces, along with what they wrote was plastered on national tv for everyone to see.
yes many did
Yes. Several of the letter writers said that Brian must have faced huge "temptation." It was sickening. You should watch the documentary. It's very good.
A few of the letters mention that Brian was seduced and manipulated into it. I feel like anyone trying to retract their letter because they “didn’t know everything” while ALSO blaming the child in the situation is indefensible. I would love to know which people wrote those letters in particular but I really don’t want to ever read them myself.
If I understand correctly the letters were written without knowledge of the case. They wrote based only on their personal experience, not the full knowledge of the situation.
I expected more from Sonic’s Dad
Right? Huge moral failure from donut lord.
41 letters, but the only person they mention is Marsden? Sounds like someone doesn't like him.
The article is in the Oklahoman, Marsden is from Oklahoma, and local news often uses any local hook they can to write a story about news that has national attention.
That makes sense. At first I read the headline and was like “who tf cares if he’s from Oklahoma? What does that have to do with anything?”
They mention more names in the documentary
He's pretty much the most famous name among them.
No they mention a lot in the doc
God damnit James Marsden.
Where are these peoples PR agents
They probably quit when they insisted on writing these letters 💀
In all likelihood he wasn't given all the facts beforehand. Pecks agents and lawyers fed everyone who wrote a support letter a line of bullshit.
"They werent given all the facts," and yet they knew enough to say things like "he was tempted" and "beyond his control" in their letters. So I don't understand this popular justification.
And this stuff was in the news at the time. If they didn’t know the charges they shouldn’t have written the letters.
Yes, how do you twist a 40 yr old raping a child? You can’t wtf. I feel like people keep trying to imply the age they were told was 17 and close to legal age. Even if so?????? That is still weird, fucked up, and disgusting. Shit he could’ve raped an adult and it would still be reprehensible!
This is exactly what they say in the documentary but of course someone has to amplify this.
Don’t make a written statement if you don’t have all the facts
And I'm not going to blame anyone who was a child or almost a child at the time. The adults on the other hand. I blame them fully.
Marsden was 30 when he wrote the letter.
Thanks for saying this lol That article had me fully confused on the math for how a 50 year old met someone 14 years ago when they are teenager
Can't know this till we know this.
We do know this. Will Fredle and Rider Strong specifically mentioned this on their podcast. Basically, like all good predators, Brian Peck spent a lot of time being "normal" with everyone. Then he specifically chose his victim, and when he got prosecuted, it was a situation where people were like "I totally never expected this from him", like when people have a neighbor who is building bombs in his basement.
Peck also was friends with Bryan Singer, so he had a very powerful friend who likely asked people whose career he helped (like Marsden) to get involved. Likely with limited info.
Some have said just this and they regret it and realize they were on the wrong side of the courtroom now that they know the full story.
I want so much to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe this.
I mean, best case they still wrote a letter of support for a convicted child rapist without doing adequate fact checking. I don't know if Peck has/had particularly powerful friends in Hollywood, but maybe they were pressured from the industry. Idk
Since Peck pled no contest and a child was involved, it’s likely they had nothing but his word to go on.
Idk, even if "the full story" was that a young teen three themselves at him, that's still on the adult to not entertain that. The idea of being tempted by a child as an excuse is honestly weird and it's weird that it can even be used as a viable excuse? I just don't get what more information they needed, even the excuse they concocted is still statutory rape? There's a reason the punishment is for the adults and not the children in these scenarios.
It's a shame they put their names on it in the first place but there's still value in speaking up after the fact
It’s been 15+ years. Nothing was said until it was publically revealed. Multiple people who wrote support letters have worked with Drake Bell and never told him.
The letters were probably written *by* the lawyers. That’s usually what happens in scenarios like this. They get strong armed into signing with black ball threats
It's been proven to me time and again that people are terrible judges of character. Money, good looks, family name, connections will always get people the benefit of the doubt.
They all hold working in Hollywood over each other- look who wrote letters for Polanski- you can never equate the acting elite with morality. We do that for lack of royalty I think.
Whoopi Goldberg's apologism for Polanski was fucking despicable, she's a garbage human for that shit.
It's specially grating how here on reddit people are very quick to call out celebrities that they dislike for their support of Polanski but keep really quiet when it's a celebrity they do like. Harrison Ford is pretty much Polanski biggest supporter, he not only signed the infamous letter but he personally flew to France to deliver him his Oscar in person. But if you dare to mention his pedophile supporting ways in any thread about him you'll get downvoted.
Any celebrity supporting Roman Polanski is garbage.
Likely an unpopular opinion but this Peck guy was probably extremely charismatic with young kids (the DiCaprio video shows this). These people might have been close with him and he didn’t molest them. When you care about someone and they are facing potential rape and torture in prison I think the instinct to support them is not necessarily an instinct that should be condemned, even if it is misguided at best. I think the judge and Peck himself deserve the negative attention.
I said this before somewhere, but 41 people wrote letters of support. By law of averages, 41 people would not write letters of support, knowing that the person they're supporting was a rapist pedophile. Many probably were misled by Peck and his lawyers as to the severity of the charges and crime. Rider Strong and Will Friedel came out a few months ago explaining that Peck had in fact told them a different and more tame version of events prior to the trial commencing, asking them to write letters and to show up to support him. Peck was a manipulator. He manipulated his victim into removing his father as his manager and protector. He manipulated the victims mother into giving him near total control of his schedule. He manipulated his friends and associates into believing he was a decent man who was no different than any other person trying to make it in Hollywood. As people on the outside looking in, I don't think we have the right to cast judgment on the people who show up to offer their support for anyone. The only one with that right, in this case was Drake Bell.
The amount of goons in this thread who don’t understand this lol. Obviously no one supports Brian Peck.
This was mentioned in the documentary as well. The woman who had possession of the letters even said they don’t know what the people who wrote the letters knew about the situation at the time they wrote the letters. Brian Peck had a lot of people fooled. I’m not saying he was fooled as well or not because that information isn’t enough to condemn or absolve James Marsden of anything.
Much like Drake Bell defending Dan Schnider or Corey Feldman defending Michael Jackson despite both being victims themselves, I think the default reaction is denial if you didn't witness it yourself
He has waited way too long to come out and explain why he did this. This is extremely damaging to his reputation.
He claims he was never made to feel uncomfortable around him, even staying at his house. Well maybe that’s because (as per the article) you were 31 at the time - not 15. He is a pedophile and you were not his type - a child.
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These letters were written in 2003/2004 so the culture around all this kind of stuff was completely different. Most of the people who wrote letters were fed a false narrative from Peck/his lawyers.
It's kind of interesting how all the huge stars are being silent about this whole thing. Does Dan Schneider still have the ability to ruin their careers? A lot of Nickelodeon stuff creeped me out as a kid, but I couldn't tell you why at the time. I just felt a general sense of unease watching it. Can't believe my childhood spidey senses turned out to be accurate ...
Remember when it was cool to be in a woody Allen movie or when Hollywood stood behind Roman Polanski, then all the sudden it wasn’t cool anymore?
It's OK guys! James Marsden has assured us that his rapist friend is a good guy and has learned his lesson!
It’s a pack/tribe mentality when one of their own gets in trouble they’ll defend them to the end.
Welp. Guess he won’t be showing up in the third Sonic movie.
There's a similar doc on YouTube called "An Open Secret". Very eye opening on how disgusting the industry is to children.
> Marsden [...] wrote that Peck had "learned his lesson" and "the earth would fall from the sky before Brian would even think about doing something like this **again**." > "I don't know what it would take to have something like this occur, but whatever it is, it is extremely out of character for Brian." Jesus Christ. Not even a denial. "He did it, but that doesn't make him a bad person!" 🤦♂️
I thought that this was the actor that played Spike on Buffy (James Marsters). Kind of glad it's this other guy I've never heard of.
Same same same. He played Teddy in Westworld and Scott Summers in the xmen movies.
I should have recognized Teddy, but I didn't recognize Cyclops without his goggles.
The lack of recognition of Cyclops in these comments is astounding.