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How Josh Peck Survived the Curse of Child Star Fame

By Paige Strout Aug 24, 2022 9:37 PMTags

The life of a child star has its fair share of ups and downs, and Josh Peck knows he's lucky to have survived the curse of child stardom.

Following the success of his fellow Nickelodeon star and friend Jennette McCurdy's tell-all memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died, the actor dished all about his own child star trials and tribulations exclusively on E! News' Daily Pop.

"I'm really lucky to have a great mom who sort of instilled this strong foundation for me early on," the How I Met Your Father star told Daily Pop's Justin Sylvester and guest host Jessie James Decker on August 24.

Unlike his goody two shoes Drake & Josh character Josh Nichols, Peck got up to a naughty thing or two during his Nickelodeon days, a topic which he discusses in his own book, Happy People Are Annoying, which released earlier this year.

"I sort of detail in the book that I certainly went through my three or four years of totally sowing my wild oats, being a cliché, having some regrettable behavior," he shared. "It just was before camera phones. I was lucky."

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Since his early industry days, Peck has become a husband and father, sharing 3-year-old son Max with wife Paige O'Brien and expecting another on the way. While the actor doesn't know if his son will one day follow in his funny footsteps, he did state that he would "support him in every way that I could."

But when it comes to navigating his son's acting career, Peck said he would do it far differently than his own. "I don't necessarily think he needs to do it professionally before he's a grown-up," he told Daily Pop. "I want him to do it for the love of it in school plays and acting class, and then kind of see from there."

Check out the full interview above to hear Peck chat about TikTok trends and his collaboration with Play-Dog for their brand-new Ultimate Ice Cream Truck.