Drake Bell Accused Josh Peck for Portraying Mexico Racist on “Drake & Josh” Reboot

Drake Bell revealed that he did not agree to work on a reboot of the famous sitcom Drake & Josh because his colleague, Josh Peck, wrote a script in which he portrayed Mexicans with racism.

In the midst of the controversy that started because Josh Peck announced that he did not invite Drake to his wedding and having revealed that his relationship is not good, now Bell lashed out at his partner and uncovered the reasons why he decided not to work for the series again. His wife, Janet Von Schmeling, also gave her version of what happened, supporting the singer.

As Janet revealed, for the new stepbrothers sitcom that was announced in 2019, it would no longer carry the title Drake & Josh, but Josh & Drake, as it would be highlighted that Josh had become a real estate agent, while Drake was a failed musician.

Von Schmeling stressed that it was Peck who wrote this new story and it was clear that “it wouldn't make sense” because Bell does dedicate himself to music in real life. In addition, they had agreed that in this project they would interpret themselves. “He did a parody of my real life,” Drake said.

That's why the singer revealed that the whole script was full of things that didn't seem right to him and made him deeply uncomfortable, including the image he would give of Mexican characters. Janet read part of what Josh would have written to account for why he canceled his participation in the reboot.

The couple emphasized that the singer is attached to Mexican culture, it is known that he receives a lot of support from Aztec lands, he works daily with a team from Mexico City and both know how tired Mexicans are because of how they are represented in foreign productions. In addition, half of Drake's family is Latino, due to Janet, who is of Paraguayan descent.

Therefore, they asked Josh to change the setting of the story, but he would not have wanted to.

“His father, Enrique, head of the poster, sits in the middle of a party at a table surrounded by guards and beautiful women. Think of Escobar, el Chapo. Drake is on stage backed by a mariachi group. While the birthday girl sees her friends in the front row, people drink huge amounts of alcohol and ingest illicit substances,” Von Schmeling continued, but decided to stop reading to clarify that this does not happen at fifteen-year-old parties.

Janet revealed that the scene does not end there, because after a shooting occurs and the hosts do not want to pay Drake for his presentation. Because of this, the musician is stranded in Mexico and decides to do a Meet&Great to return to the United States, however, there are only a few people.

Throughout the podcast, Bell remarked that he had a great appreciation for Peck and his reunions were “magical” for him, but he would have noticed that Josh didn't feel the same way thanks to his book, where he portrayed that he would have always wanted to be the star of his own sitcom.

KEEP READING: