Drake Bell Says People Assume Everyone on TV Is Rich, but ‘No One’ on Nickelodeon...

[TMC]

...Got Paid Residuals

https://people.com/drake-bell-says-h...-show-11771617

“It's just like getting high on child labor,” the ‘Drake & Josh’ star said of TV executives during a recent episode of ‘The Unplanned Podcast’

By Latoya Gayle Published on July 20, 2025 07:00AM EDT

• Drake Bell reflected on starring in Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh as a child during his July 2 appearance on The Unplanned Podcast
• The actor, 39, said he doesn't receive residuals from his time on the kids' show and alleged that the way that child stars are treated contributed to his bankruptcy
• “If Elon [Musk] gets us to Mars and they show Drake & Josh, it's impossible for me to get paid for it," Bell said

Drake Bell is feeling short-changed.

During a July 2 appearance on The Unplanned Podcast, the actor, 39, revealed to hosts Abby Howard and Matt Howard that he doesn’t receive residual checks from his time as a child star on Nickelodeon. Following his debut on the network on The Amanda Show, Bell starred alongside Josh Peck in the hit series Drake & Josh for four seasons between 2004 and 2007.

Bell described the system in place for protecting child stars’ earnings as “flawed” before revealing that his experience on Nickelodeon wasn’t as profitable as people may assume.

“That’s the perception of the world, it’s always been this way,” Bell said, after Matt confessed he grew up idolizing kids on TV. “It's like, you know, ‘Oh, you made a Folgers Coffee commercial. You must live in a mansion in Hollywood. Like, I saw you on TV. You're rich.’

“That's far from the case,” he continued. “And especially, which is the bummer for most of us on Nickelodeon, we don't get residuals for our shows.”



Bell explained that almost everyone who featured on the network received a one-time payment for their work, while other people in the television and film industry are paid every time their art is shown.

He gave the example of Netflix having to pay the cast of Seinfeld every time a subscriber streams the sitcom. The actor added that residuals are how actors make the “majority” of their money.

“You wanna get into syndication,” Bell explained. “You wanna get to 100 episodes so that you can get to syndication, and then you wanna get into syndication because then you get your residual money, that's where you make your money."

“For example, the Friends cast at the peak was making a million dollars an episode,” he continued. “You make 13 episodes that year, you make $13,000,000. You make 20 episodes that year, you make $20,000,000, right?

"But right now, each cast member of Friends just in syndication alone is making over $20,000,000 a year, and they're not filming a show every week. They're not going to work, but they're playing their show and they're using their likeness and they're doing all this, so they get paid for it. And they're making over $20,000,000 in a year just because other networks are buying the rights for syndication," he added.

Matt questioned whether Nickelodeon stars didn’t receive residuals because of their age at the time they were filming.

“It's a lot of evil, corrupt people. That's the only thing, that is the answer,” Bell said, adding, “There's no other answer.”

He then clarified that only a few guest stars from the show continue to receive a check in the mail from all the people who featured on the network around the time that he did.

Bell said he sees marathons of Drake & Josh on television with commercials that make corporations huge sums of money, yet he doesn’t receive anything from the replays.

“Do everything that they do to us mentally and emotionally, and then throw us to the wolves,” Bell said. “And we're like, okay, cool. I got rent this month.

“There are three channels doing Drake & Josh marathons,” he continued. “Netflix just bought it, it's top 10 on Netflix, and I gotta figure out how to pay my rent this month.

“And some fat cat with a cigar is just sitting up at the top of Viacom just going [chuckles]. What do you call it? It's just like getting high on child labor,” Bell added.

The Drake & Josh star said people outside of the industry don’t understand that it’s easy to go broke without residual income. Paying publicists and managers, traveling to auditions and California taxes are just a few things that contribute to a huge financial burden that people don’t see.

"People don't understand how the business works, the business side of this. They just see what the perception is on Instagram and social media and all the glitz and the glamour of Hollywood," he said.

Bell added, “We're putting in all of this work. This corporation is making billions with a 'B' off of us, and we're being compensated for the week of work, cool, but that's it. And forever, in perpetuity, it literally says in the contract, across universes and galaxies and planets."

Claiming that a lack of residuals contributed to his going bankrupt, Bell emphasized, “If Elon [Musk] gets us to Mars and they show Drake & Josh, it's impossible for me to get paid for it.”