Child Actor Drake Bell Has A New Career: Ruining Childhoods

 

     As a relatively young man, I saw the good side of Drake Bell when I was growing up. An actor from age five and a musician from age twelve, he made a name for himself in the television series Drake and Josh and from his numerous single, EP, and album releases. He also worked as a philanthropist, raising and donating money for and to causes like world thirst, cystic fibrosis, and child poverty.

     In recent years, Bell has made the fact that he is, in spite of earlier public appearances, a bad man quite clear. His trouble began in 2010, when he was charged with a DUI in relation to an incident that occurred in San Diego in 2009. For someone who, in 2005, nearly died in an automobile accident that required 70 facial stitches, numerous surgeries, and the wiring of his mouth for two months to correct a broken jaw and neck, one would think he would learn his lesson. He didn't. He was arrested on December 21st, 2015, for another DUI after driving over the speed limit and swerving between numerous lanes of traffic. He was convicted, spent a day in jail, and received four years of probation, which ended in 2019.

     He's not just a menace on the road. Maybe he was drinking to cope with the bankruptcy and ultimate foreclosure of his house in 2014, but the fact that he is a loser wouldn't explain away the allegations that surfaced in August 2020. Ex-girlfriend Melissa Lingafelt was 16 when she started dating the 24-year-old Bell. Aside from the fact that this alone is a misdemeanor sex crime in most states, including California, she also revealed in a TikTok that he physically and verbally abused her: punching her, pushing her, and dragging her down the stairs, resulting in blunt trauma to the head. Bell denied the allegations and claimed that she was trying to get money and attention, a technique common among abusers known as gaslighting.

     Exactly how abusive Bell is surfaced in June 2021. In December 2017, the 31-year-old Bell sent inappropriate social media messages to a child aged 15 and, according to police in Cleveland, Ohio, also created unreasonable risk to the child when she attended one of his concerts that month. On June 4th, 2021, Bell was arrested and charged with endangering a child and dissemination of harmful matter, felony and misdemeanor sex crimes, respectively. He pleaded not guilty until he changed his mind at his court date on June 23rd. He faces up to two years in prison, three years probation, and 10 years of sex offender registration in addition to $5,000 in fines and extensive community service and treatment requirements as a maximum. He will be sentenced on July 12th.

     Bell's trail of victims needs to end. He needs to lose his social media platforms, he needs to go to prison, he needs to be forced to pay reparations until he is bankrupt, and he needs his career as an actor and musician to end for good and have all his awards revoked. Bell is a menace to society, and only the aforementioned measures will begin to bring justice and closure.