Actor Drake Bell—who became a household name after starring in Nickelodeon’s Drake & Josh and The Amanda Show—was found safe after the Daytona Beach Police Department reported him “missing and endangered,” in a Facebook post Thursday.
Thursday morning Daytona police announced Bell, 36, was missing, and had last been seen just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday in a 2022 gray BMW in the area of Mainland High School.
Daytona Police updated its Facebook post at 1:26 p.m. Thursday, saying law enforcement had been in contact with Bell and he was safe.
Before Bell was reported safe, Yvette Nicole Brown, a former Drake & Josh costar, expressed her concern for Bell on Twitter, and asked fans to call police if they saw him.
For the past few years Bell has had frequent run-ins with the law. In June 2021, Bell pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to endanger children and a misdemeanor charge of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles, according to Variety. The charges were the result of a 2017 incident between Bell and a 15-year-old girl. Bell took to Instagram to defend himself after he plead guilty, saying the plea was the “best way to get this over quickly.” In the Instagram video he thanked fans for “seeing through the lies” and “media confusion” about his case. In 2015, Bell was arrested for a DUI, and spent four days in jail after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor, the Los Angeles Times reported.
TANGENT
Bell made headlines in 2020 after he appeared to rebrand himself as Drake Campana (the Spanish word for Bell) a Spanish-language singer. Bell changed some of his social media handles to include a Mexican flag, shared an image of his Mexican ID with the name Drake Campana and began posting only in Spanish. He also released an album of Spanish songs in 2020.