Penn Badgley Was Involved in Drake Bell's Lawsuit Against Brian Peck
Penn Badgley‘s mother, Lynne Murphy Badgley, reportedly wrote a letter of support for dialogue coach Brian Peck after he was accused of sexual abuse by Drake Bell.
Penn’s mother was mentioned in a profile on Bell, 37, published by Business Insider on Monday, March 18. The article focused on Investigation Discovery’s Nickelodeon docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which was produced in association with the outlet.
Business Insider reports that Lynne wrote that Peck was “one of the few people I have always trusted” with her son. Penn, now 27, was 17 when this letter was submitted to the judge, who ultimately sentenced Peck to serve time in prison, in 2004. Penn worked on the sitcom What I Like About You, which was created by Nickelodeon’s Dan Schneider and Peck was also credited as a background actor in two episodes of the show.)
Penn and Lynne did not respond to Us Weekly‘s request for comment.
Quiet on Set marked the first time that Bell spoke out about being sexually assaulted by Peck, who was arrested in August 2003 for sexually abusing a then-unnamed child. Peck pleaded no contest to performing a lewd act with a victim around 14 or 15 years old and to oral copulation with a child under 16 years old, which resulted in a 16-month prison sentence.
Bell confirmed in the doc that he was the child star involved in the lawsuit. The directors behind Quiet on Set, Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, were able to unseal the letters of support in the case, which was mentioned in the third and fourth installment of the doc.
Some of the names and letters featured included Rider Strong, Will Friedle, James Marsden and director Thomas DeSanto. According to Business Insider journalist Kate Taylor, who appeared in the doc and wrote the profile on Bell, the letters asked the judge in the case to grant Peck probation. Taylor said it was unclear how much Peck’s friends knew about the charges being brought up against him at the time.
Strong, 44, and Friedle, 47, spoke out about their past support for Peck one month before Quiet on Set aired. On their “Pod Meets World” podcast, Strong said he wasn’t aware of the charges brought against Peck.
“He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that story line,” Strong said. “I never heard about the other things because, 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.”
Friedle, meanwhile, expressed regret at attending Peck’s 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,’” he 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.”
Friedle added: “We weren’t told the whole story, but it doesn’t change the fact that we did it. I still can’t get the words out to describe all of the things that I’m feeling inside of myself.”
Marsden, 50, has not responded to the claims after Us reached out for comment. DeSanto, 56, released a public statement after mentioning in his letter that he met Peck through Marsden.
“Having dedicated a significant portion of my career to shedding light on systemic abuse and advocating for those without a voice, these experiences have profoundly shaped my understanding of responsibility and advocacy and is at the core of who I am,” DeSanto told Us in a statement. “My decisions at the time were based on incomplete information given to me, and I lacked full awareness of the gravity of the accusations. With the knowledge and understanding I possess today, I want to personally apologize to Drake and his family and emphatically state that had I been fully informed of all the accusations, my support would have been absolutely withheld.”
While discussing the trial against Peck, Bell recalled seeing Peck’s packed side of the room during the sentencing.
“I looked at all of them [during my statement] and I just said, ‘How dare you. You will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person. And I will forever have the memory of the person you are defending violating me and doing unspeakable acts and crimes. And that is what I will remember,'” he shared during Quiet on Set.
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Directors Robertson and Schwartz also weighed in on the letters of support during an exclusive interview with Us. “I think one wonders about the conditions under which they were written, if any pressure was exerted, who asked whom to write which letters and what rationale was offered,” Robertson said about the questions she still has. “So we hope that we learn more in the coming weeks and months.”
Robertson addressed whether they were concerned about the public response from people who wrote the letters, concluding, “The letters have been entered into the public record, they’re available.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
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