What Is Drake Bell Up To?

Every once in a while I decide to look into a musical artist or celebrity that I used to be interested in. Just to see how they’re doing — not that they need me to check in on them.

I did this with Drake Bell of Drake & Josh a while ago and found out that he went bankrupt in 2014 and wrote an EP called Smoke It Up in 2019. Overall, wasn’t looking great.

So I was glad to see recently that Drake is on the way up again. In 2024, he appeared in the documentary Quiet on Set, which detailed abuse of child TV stars. He also released a new concept album walking through his life called Non-stop Flight the same year and appeared on some podcasts, explaining where he’s been and his experience with abuse.

He’s had a lot of ups and downs prior, of course. To review the highlights without getting overly sensational:

Drake Bell started acting when he was five years old, and eventually made it big on The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh, which allowed him to both hone his acting skills and showcase his own music. He started at The Amanda Show in 2003 and released his first album in 2005.

As he said in Quiet on Set, Drake was sexually assaulted by dialogue coach Brian Peck when he was acting during this time. He was fifteen and working on The Amanda Show when the abuse happened. Since Drake & Josh ended in 2009, Drake continued to act and release albums, but the abuse changed him and led to cope via drugs and drinking.

Throughout that time, he was incredibly popular in Mexico, at one point having a #1 album in the country. He toured and acted, but his habits ultimately got him into bankruptcy in 2014. He had a DUI in 2016 as well.

In 2018, he mentioned that he was married to his girlfriend of five years and that they had a son together, but they ended up separating and then divorcing in 2022 and 2023. He mentioned in a recent podcast that he thinks highly of his ex-wife and is sure not to say a bad word about her to his son, remembering his own parents’ issues with divorce.

Their separation happened shortly after Drake was convicted for endangering conduct/disseminating harmful material with/to a minor (2021). His side of the story was that he exchanged some provocative texts with a fifteen-year old fan when he was thirty-one, but that he didn’t send any sexual images and stopped communication when he found out her age. She claimed sexual assault as well, but that wasn’t part of the conviction.

Shortly before appearing on Quiet on Set in 2024, Drake had fallen into a bad way and decided that it was time to go to rehab. He got sober at an organization in Nashville and subsequently decided to be a part of the documentary. Since then, he’s released a new album and still tours, living a semi-nomadic life with much of his time spent in Mexico.

Looks like Drake Bell has had a roller coaster of a life so far, and he’s only 38.

Drake mentioned in a recent interview that we can think that we know a person, especially a celebrity, without truly knowing what’s going on in their life. This is a great example of the human element in all celebrities. They may have glamorous or scandalous lives from the outside, but within it’s the same crises that each of us faces.

Drake Bell has had to deal with hard work and working for pay since age five, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, court appearances, the highs and lows of a music and acting career, loneliness, bankruptcy, and redemption, all within the public eye.

A person like Drake could easily seem one-dimensional, having a successful acting career and then a successful music career. But when you dig into the struggles under the hood and the experiences with power, sex, marriage, love, money, and hard work, he has had much the same drama as each of us, even if to a higher degree.

And like our own lives, his seems multi-faceted and not entirely clear. He certainly has done some bad things, from getting in a Twitter feud about Justin Bieber to getting a DUI and breaking off a marriage. But all that was mixed with amazing acting and musical success, the blessing of a child, and the trials of sexual abuse, addiction, and rehab.

So it isn’t always so cut and dry. And it can be a lesson for us, watching a child star go through his odyssey so that we don’t have to endure the same level of pain and struggle. I don’t know the whole truth of each dramatic moment in Drake Bell’s life, but I wish him well going forward.