“Boy Meets World” Actors Detail Past Friendship with Guest Star and Convicted Child Abuser

Will Friedle and Rider Strong explained how Brian Peck — who pleaded no contest in 2004 to charges of committing a lewd act against a child — "ingratiated" himself to them

Actors from Boy Meets World are looking back on their former friendship with a guest star who was later convicted of child abuse.

Pod Meets World co-hosts Will Friedle, Rider Strong and Danielle Fishel — joined on Monday's episode by family therapist Kati Morton — directly addressed the circumstances surrounding season 5 guest star Brian Peck. In 2003, he was arrested on charges of a lewd act against a child and oral copulation of a person under 16. In 2004, he entered a plea of no contest on the charge of a lewd act against a child.

"Today, we face one of those uncomfortable and inconvenient moments. Every episode we mention the guest stars that you're going to see. We say their name and we mention the other shows they've been on. And with season 5 looming close, we know that we'll need to address an actor and behind-the-scenes figure who appeared on the show starting in 1997," began Fishel, 42.

"We knew this deserved a more detailed discussion, especially even since we as hosts are still unpacking everything involved," she continued. "We know that discourse around the subject has culturally ramped up with Will and Rider even being contacted recently for a statement. So we decided to talk about it here on our podcast, where we can dig much deeper than one sentence."

Of Peck, Fishel noted that the actor — who appeared in two episodes as a cowboy and a character named Ookiee — "would eventually become a mainstay on set, not just working on the show and appearing on it with many small roles until it concluded in 2001, but integrating himself into Will and Rider's personal life, becoming part of their most trusted inner circle, despite being more than 15 years older than both of them, and crossing many workplace boundaries." She then mentioned Peck's August 2003 arrest "came as a shock to us at the time."

"We saw no signs of this behavior, and were not victimized ourselves and we're constantly being told by this person who was our friend that he was the actual victim. In the end, he was convicted and spent 16 months in prison," she added.

The "little out-of-format" yet "honest and open" conversation — taking over the episode's entirety — was prompted by the upcoming release of ID's docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which explores shows produced by Dan Schneider, with whom Nickelodeon cut ties in 2018 amid allegations of abusive behavior.

Both Friedle, 47, and Strong, 44, were contacted for statements on Peck for the four-part docuseries since they previously supported Peck in his legal battle.

"This guy had so ingratiated himself in my life. ... 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," Friedle said, while Strong indicated he would also hang out with Peck "all the time" as well despite the pair's 20-year age gap.

Friedle then recalled how Peck immediately presented his arrest "where it wasn't his fault" and "it was clearly the fault of his victim," noting that he "turned us against the victim."

"My initial instinct because of the years I've been with him was like 'Well, yeah, of course, it can't be you. Can't be. Right, you're innocent. It can't possibly be that,'" he recalled. "So you sidle up to the guy who now you look back on as an adult and you go, 'He's horrible.' And my instinct initially was, 'Well, my friend can't be [this person], this can't be. So it's got to be the other person's fault,' has to be the story. Of course, it makes complete sense. The way that he's saying it and 'You're damn right, it's that kid's fault. How dare he?' And I look back at that now as an adult, and it makes me want to cry that I ever was that naive."

Agreeing that Peck downplayed the severity of the situation, Strong claimed he "didn't say nothing had happened" but suggested he was "a victim of jailbait." Strong added, "Back then, you couldn't Google to find out what people were being charged with" and went on to speculate that, "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."

At the time, Friedle and Strong wrote letters to the judge in Peck's defense before appearing in court to support him. Thinking back to the court hearing, Friedle now believes they were "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. " just sat there wanting to die. It was like, 'What the hell am I doing here?' It was horrifying all the way around."

"We weren't told the whole story, but it doesn't change the fact that we did it," he added. "I still can't get the words out to describe all of the things that I'm feeling inside of myself."

PEOPLE has reached out to a representative for Peck.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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