Drake Bell spoke to and forgives Rider Strong

[pepsi_twist9]

I just had the most amazing conversation with @RiderStrong we are all healing together. I have nothing but love and forgiveness for him.
- DrakeBell.ethᵍᵐ (@DrakeBell) April 5, 2024

As a follow-up to this post Drake has tweeted that he did speak to Rider and that he forgives them. No word on Will Friedle

Source: Twitter

Comments

[green_monsterx]

Brian Peck was also employed on BMW and was close with Will & Rider. They would hang out all the time outside of the job, remained friends with the show ended, etc. In 2003, I think, was the court case against Brian Peck for what he did to Drake Bell (unnamed until the documentary). Rider, who was 24 at the time, and Will (27), wrote letters in support of Peck and sat on his side of the courtroom during the case. They did an hour long podcast about it before the documentary and the crux of it was that they didn't know the full charges he was accused of, that Peck admitted that he had relations with Drake, but that it was consensual and basically he used the "jailbait" reasoning and the two of them believed their friend. Will told a story on the podcast where at the trial, Drake's mom turned around and said something along the lines of, "Look at all your famous friends you brought here. It still doesn't change what you did to my son

[silverstarry]

I agree. In 2003-2004, we were definitely not as dependent upon the internet as we are now, and it wasn't used as prevalently for every little news story. Larger publications like the NYT had fully functioning websites with their stories but a lot of the websites that would blast the Brian Peck trial now either didn't exist or weren't at that capacity yet, which means the trial for some guy who wasn't well known outside of the industry probably didn't merit headlines on major websites at the time

[justleilah]

While I don't disagree with you at the commonality of how many of these older guys were creepily dating young starlets still in their mid to late teens, I don't agree that it was accepted. It was gross then, regular folks did talk about it (especially serial creepos like Wilmer), but the industry and the media didn't hold anyone accountable for it. We do more overtly talk about it more now because social media gives everyone a mouthpiece, but even then there was chatter on things like message boards.

[sillycucumber2]

I felt like Rider was in denial.

[green_monsterx]

That’s very generous of you considering he’s had two decades to process it and knows that Brian peck was convicted and did jail time

[inandoutofgrace]

ok, I don’t follow any of these people but Will seemed great on Critical Role and I wanted to like him - that’s the only thing I know him from though.

But this is just trash behaviour imo, firstly they only had one side of the story so to write letters in support when the allegations concerned two people and none of their own involvement, is just insane to me. Also, what Peck fed them in terms of “jailbait” sounds straight up gross? Like I would judge the fuck out of a friend if they tried to defend themselves like that to me. Urgh idk but I’m happy that the victim made peace at least, only his view on it actually matters

[green_monsterx]

I don’t disagree but I commented earlier that I do think the time is impt. The internet in 2003 was not what it is now. Drake himself has said he does not blame the people who wrote letters because they were manipulated and didn’t know the full extent of what happened. Someone else made a longer comment elsewhere that really touched on all of it, too. The bigger issue for me is their responses now - rider’s in particular was awful on the podcast, and even more upsetting knowing they had the knowledge of this documentary coming out and chose to do the episode, and he STILL said all those awful things and waffled over why they needed to rehash this when he had already served his times for his crimes. Like, there is no excuse in 2024 for that shit, and Drake had previously called out rider specifically on a post Alexa Nikolas had made about the podcast ep. Not will, just rider, which is also why I think he did this tweet because people were rightfully coming for his neck. I think will should also release another statement now that the

[inandoutofgrace]

I mean Drake would understand the nuances of the situation better than any of us so as mentioned, I’m happy he’s at peace with this Rider person. I’m still judging though lol