Boy meets world Alumni Will Friedel and Ryder Strong talk about their experiences while on ABC with Brian Beck on today’s episode of Pod meets world Podcast. Beck, who was an actor and dialogue coach on several children’s television shows before joining boy meets world, He appeared as a guest star in two episodes of the fifth season of the coming-of-age sitcom that aired on ABC from 1993 to 2000.
February 19th episode of Pod meets world The podcast features alumni Danielle Fisher, Strong, and Friedel discussing “the difficult topics of grooming, child sexual abuse, and their effects on victims” with marriage and family therapist Katie Morton. The episode focused on Beck during his time boy meets world, who in 2004 pleaded no contest to any charges of committing a lewd act against a child on the show. He was found guilty and sentenced to 16 months in prison and was required to register as a sex offender. Beck is also one of the participants Quiet on the Set: The Dark Side of Children’s Televisionan upcoming four-part documentary series that exposes the toxic and dangerous culture on the sets of Nickelodeon’s children’s shows from director Dan Schneider in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
sMeet the world The podcast usually includes Friedle, Strawn, and Fisher recap episodes of the show as well as behind-the-scenes information about what it’s really like to film the show. But today they disagreed in a different way after they were asked to provide a statement about Beck Quiet on the setand decided to use their podcast episode instead.
Friedel said he became friends with Beck shortly after he joined the show.
“I didn’t really go to parties. I didn’t really do that stuff. But I was working a lot after that.” boy meets world, And this guy inserted himself into my life, so I took him to three shows after that Boy meets world“,” Friedel told the co-hosts. “It was the kind of thing where the person introducing him was this cool, funny guy who was really good at his job, and you wanted to spend time with him…I would see him every day, hang out with him every day, “I talked to him every day.”
Strong said he and Beck also spent a lot of time together outside of work, regardless of the 20-year age difference between the two.
Fishel shared that cast members routinely spent time with Beck, who was gay, including lunches.
“Why are you guys going to lunch with this guy?” “Why would this guy go to Ryder’s house for a party?” Fishel said. “Maybe there was a part of them that didn’t say it because they were afraid it would be seen as homophobic, rather than ‘These are boundaries, whether you’re gay or not.’ These are boundaries between adults and children.”
When Beck was arrested in 2003, Friedel said the actor called him in tears and “immediately turned it around to where it wasn’t his fault, it was clearly his victim’s fault.” Friedel initially thought he was telling the truth. “My initial instinct was: ‘Dude, this can’t be it. It must be the other guy’s fault.'” The story makes perfect sense the way he’s telling it.
Neither Friedel nor Strong realized how serious the case against Beck was.
“He didn’t say nothing 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’m guilty.’ I will take whatever punishment the government decides,” but I am a victim of prison. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and it’s underage. And we bought that story. Ryder said. “I never heard about the other stuff because, at the time, you couldn’t Google what people were being charged with. So, in the past, he would take a plea deal and admit to one thing, which is all he admitted to us, but it seems… That he was accused of a series of crimes, which we did not know about.
Beck had asked Strong and Friedel to support him in court. They agreed and wrote letters to the judge in Peck’s defense.
“We’re sitting in the courtroom on the wrong side of everything… The victim’s mother turned and said, ‘Look at all the celebrities you brought with you. “And it doesn’t change what I did for my child,” Friedel shared. “I sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was terrifying all over.”
He continued: “We were not told the whole story, but that does not change the fact that we did it. I still can’t get the words out to describe all the things I feel inside myself.”
Friedel is still affected to this day by what he and Strong experienced.
“There’s a real victim here. And he’s turned us against the victim to where we are now on his team. That’s the thing that for me, I look at that as a constant endearing shame to this whole (thing),” he said. “When I’m taken advantage of by someone who’s an actor Well and manipulative, I can put it down to being young and that’s the way it is. terrible. I will use that to grow as a human being, but when there is an actual victim and now I’m on the abusive side, that’s the thing that I can’t get over and I haven’t been able to get over it.”
Deadline has reached out to Beck’s rep for comment.