Drake Bell is “disappointed” that he was unable to attend Josh Peck’s wedding.
We never imagined it could be so simple, but Josh Peck is talking about pay.
The Drake and Josh alum recently talked about his annual pay as a kid star and the financial misunderstandings that came with it. He played opposite Drake Bell in the Nickelodeon show from 2004 to 2007.
On the April 11 episode of Dear Media’s Trading Secrets podcast, he stated, “I can only speak to my experience.”
“I believe it’s very public if you were on a show like Two and a Half Men or Modern Family, and you were the kid on a major network, syndicated show,” he continued. “You might make the argument that you’d have enough money to last the rest of your life.”
He expresses his belief that there is this, “But, the reality is that while we were filming the show, we produced 60 episodes and we made around $15,000 per episode,” he explained. After all was said and done, we were left with only agents, managers, and taxes.
Josh went on to say, “You live on around $450,000 over the course of five years, or a little less than $100,000 per year—certainly a significant sum of money, but not nearly enough to set you up for life.
And we made it through a lot of it, and I’m not going to brag: my mother and I had a used BMW five series. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment with all the bells and whistles. We had a really middle-class upbringing.”
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Josh revealed that there were “no residuals on kids’ television,” adding that the money “went to their lifestyles after the show was over.”
He explained, “It was like we had an 18-month runway.” “It’s as if someone’s job had disappeared.”
This isn’t the first time the 35-year-old actor has spoken up about his experience on Nickelodeon’s hit show.
Josh claimed in March that he and his former co-star (who had a previous feud over Drake’s refusal to attend Josh’s wedding in 2017) were currently “not really” friends.
On the other hand, Drake said he was “bugged” by Josh’s declaration that their friendship had ended in his own podcast episode a few days later.
