Rider Strong and Will Friedle addressed their complicated connection with Boy Meets World guest star and convicted sexual abuser Brian Peck.
Strong, 44, Friedle, 47, and Danielle Fishel used the Monday, February 19, episode of their “Pod Meets World” podcast to discuss Peck, 63, after they were recently contacted for a statement about Investigation Discovery’s upcoming Quiet on Set docuseries. The show documents the alleged abuse that took place on multiple Nickelodeon productions, including allegations against Peck.
Friedle recalled developing a friendship with Peck after Peck appeared on two episodes of Boy Meets World, which aired from 1993 to 2000.
“I didn’t really go to parties. I didn’t really do that stuff. But I was working a lot after Boy Meets World and this guy had so ingratiated himself into my life, I took him to three shows after Boy Meets World,” Friedle, who played Eric, recalled. “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. I saw him every day, hung out with him every day, talked to him every day.”
Strong, who played Shawn, also found himself hanging out with Peck “all the time” despite the guest star being 20 years older. Fishel, 42, then speculated that Peck’s sexuality allowed him to spend more time with Strong and Friedle without being questioned.
“The other adults on set, who maybe could have or should have said, ‘Why are you guys going to lunch with this guy?’ [or] ‘Why is this guy going to Rider’s house for a party?’ 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,’” Fishel said. “And so I also think that’s important in the story of Rider and Will, about why he befriended the two of you so closely.”
In 2003, Peck was accused of molesting a child and was subsequently convicted of a lewd act against a child and oral copulation of a person under 16. He spent 16 months in prison after being charged on eight counts of sexual abuse.
Friedle and Strong weren’t aware of the charges brought against Peck at the time and they found themselves defending their then-friend.
“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 recalled. “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 and Strong showed their support for Peck by writing letters to the judge and attending the court hearing.
“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.”
Friedle said he still struggles with his decision to stand by Peck, adding, “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.”
Friedle hasn’t seen Peck in nearly two decades. Strong, however, ran into Peck at a party seven years ago.
“It was one of the most intense experiences in my life because I saw him, I hadn’t seen him in years, and he immediately started talking to me as old friends or whatever,” he noted. “The story that he was telling me was nonsense but what he was letting me know was that he was with famous people who validate him and put him in a category of Hollywood royalty. He did that constantly when we were on the set of Boy Meets World and I never saw it because it was so effortless. Here I was at this party and I had to leave, I was so freaked the f—k out.”
Friedle and Strong weren’t sure whether they should discuss Peck on their podcast. They ultimately chose to as a way to validate anyone who has a history with grooming or manipulation.
“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],” Friedle said. “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.”
Later in the episode, Strong admitted he felt “so uncomfortable” breaking his silence.
“I still feel like we should not be ruining this man’s life more. I still feel that. I think there’s a lot of layers to that. It just makes me so uncomfortable,” he shared. “The fact that this person, this convicted child sex offender, worked on Boy Meets World, is not even one of the top 100 facts about Boy Meets World in the universe. After this, it’s going to be the thing. It’s going to rise to the top of one of the most talked about facts about us and our show.”
Strong concluded: “I don’t like the idea that we are affecting the cultural memory of Boy Meets World with this. That’s a bummer because I feel like, in my experience of Boy Meets World, it’s not that big of a part of it.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Peck for comment.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
