Featured Image Credit: Nickelodeon/Alamy
Topics: Film and TV, Entertainment
Cameron Frew
Josh Peck has opened up about his fractured relationship with his former co-star Drake Bell.
The pair defined a generation of Nickelodeon viewers' childhoods with Drake and Josh, one of the channel's most popular shows in the mid-aughts, in which they starred as teen stepbrothers.
However, their off-screen relationship has been a bit bumpy: Bell pleaded guilty to child endangerment charges, which Peck described as 'upsetting' and 'disappointing'; and Bell said their ties were 'officially cut' when he wasn't invited to Peck's wedding in 2018.
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Peck recently appeared on the BFFs with Dave Portnoy and Josh Richards podcast, where he discussed his time on the beloved sitcom and his relationship with Bell ever since the show came to a close in 2007.
The actor, who was recently cast in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, revealed he doesn't earn a cent from the show's re-runs on Nickelodeon. "I've worked through it, it's taken a while... I think I was a generation who got screwed," he said.
Later in the episode, Peck is shown a photo of Bell and is asked whether they're still friends. "Not really, no," he answered.
"I didn't invite him to my wedding and the internet went crazy," he continued, going onto explain how he and Bell didn't stay in touch as much as people may have thought.
"But no-one needed to know that... I was happy to die with that secret that like, we made this thing that people really love but we weren't that close."
While Peck didn't expect there'd be any issue with not inviting him, Bell didn't seem to agree, calling him out on social media on the night of his wedding. "Then he leans in and goes on this press tour about how heartbroken he is, and creating this narrative which just isn't true," he said.
Watch Peck's full appearance on the podcast below:
The issue for Peck was more how it impacted his wife's wedding. However, he just had to 'eat it', because he didn't want to outright say they weren't that close.
The pair then caught sight of each other at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards. "This may be the most Sopranos thing I've ever done... I walk up to him and I go, 'Go apologise to my wife, right now'," Peck recalled, at which point Bell delivered a five-minute apology. That was the last time they spoke.
When asked if they were close during Drake and Josh, Peck said it came down to something simple: they were really different from one another. "I wanna like the guy that my name is attached to forever, but unfortunately it sort of worked out the way that it did," he said.
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