Drake Bell recently wore his heart on his sleeve and addressed his thoughts regarding the child endangerment charges he’s been handed.
Bell shed light on it all in an Instagram video where he was heard saying, “A lot of the news that you've been hearing, most of the news that you've hard recently, is entirely false and wrong, and I feel that you deserve and I owe you an explanation.”
“I know that this has moved very quickly for you, but for me it's been a three-year thorough investigation into every false claim that has been made, and it's not me telling you that the claims are false, but the state of Ohio has proven the claims to be false.”
“If these claims were remotely true, my situation would be very different, and I would not be here at home with my wife and my son. But that being said, I'm not perfect, and I made mistakes. I responded to a fan whose age I didn't know … yet when I became aware of their age, all conversation and communication stopped.”
“And this individual continued to come to shows and pay for meet and greets, all while I was unaware that this was the same person that I was communicating with online. And, uh, and that's what I pled guilty to. You know, I … it was reckless and irresponsible text messages.”
While addressing his reasons behind taking the plea deal he added, “This is strictly over text messages, and when I was presented with a plea deal, because of the messages, I felt that it was the best way to get this over quickly and for everybody involved to get to move on.”
Before concluding he added, “And, you know, don't believe the media right off the bat, you know, it's a lot of clickbait. Do your own research and come top your own conclusions. And I just want to say thank you to all of you … for sticking by me. And I love you. And I will see you soon.”