Boy Meets World stars Rider Strong, Danielle Fishel, and Will Friedle used the latest episode of their rewatch podcast to address their experiences with convicted sexual abuser Brian Peck.
On the Monday edition of Pod Meets World, the hosts were joined by family therapist Kati Morton in a discussion about Peck, who guest-starred on two Season 5 episodes of Boy Meets World. In the podcast episode’s intro, Fishel explained that they felt the need to address Peck because his episodes are coming up in their recap podcast, and because both Strong and Friedle were recently contacted for statements about Peck.
(Though she didn’t explain why, it’s likely because Peck’s story is set to be featured in an upcoming docuseries, Quiet on Set, about past alleged abuse and grooming at Nickelodeon.)
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In Fishel’s intro, she clarifies that she and her co-hosts were never personally victimized by Peck, but that during his time on the Boy Meets World set, the actor befriended both Strong and Friedle, “becoming part of their most trusted inner circle, despite being more than 15 years older than both of them.”
In reflecting on that relationship, Friedle explained that they were surrounded by adults all the time around that age, so it didn’t seem unusual.
“This was the type of thing where the person he presented was this great, funny guy who was really good at his job, and you wanted to hang out with,” Friedle said. “I saw him every day, hung out with him every day, talked to him every day.”
Fishel wondered if some of the adults on set avoided questioning the relationship because they didn’t want to come across as homophobic toward Peck, an out gay man.
“There was probably a part of them that didn’t say it because they were afraid it was going to be taken as homophobia, instead of, ‘This is a boundary, gay or not. This is a boundary between adults and kids,’” she said.
In 2003, six years after Peck appeared on Boy Meets World, the actor, then 43, was charged with committing a lewd act against a child. He was subsequently convicted and spent 16 months in prison. Friedle and Strong said Peck described himself as a victim and downplayed the severity of the offenses to them.
“My instinct initially was, ‘My friend, this can’t be. It’s gotta be the other person’s fault,’” Friedle said. “The story makes complete sense the way that he’s saying it.”
Strong agreed: “Back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with. So in retrospect, he was making a plea deal and admitting one thing, which is all he admitted to us, but it looks like he was being charged with a series of crimes, which we did not know.”
So when Peck asked Friedle and Strong to support him in court, they agreed, writing letters to the judge to defend Peck and even appearing at his sentencing.
“We’re sitting in that courtroom on the wrong side of everything… The victim’s mother turned and said, ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn’t change what you did to my kid,’” Friedle recalled. “I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.”
He added: “There’s an actual victim here, and he turned us against the victim to where now we’re on his team. That’s the thing where, to me, I look back at that as my ever-loving shame for this entire [thing]. Getting taken in by somebody who’s a good actor and a manipulator, I could chalk that up to being young and that’s the way it is. It’s awful. I’m going to use that for my growth as a human being, but when there’s an actual victim involved and now I’m on the abuser’s side, that’s the thing I can’t get over and haven’t been able to get over.”
