Who Is Drake Bell Dating in 2020 After Melissa Lingafelt?
We know Drake Bell best for his early 2000s hit Drake & Josh. But it seems he’s found himself in hot water. His ex-girlfriend, Melissa Lingafelt, took to TikTok to express abuse accusations against the child star.
Now, many are wondering what went down between Lingafelt and Bell — and if Bell’s dating anyone currently. Here’s what we know.
Drake Bell was just accused of abuse by ex-girlfriend Melissa Lingafelt
Lingafelt took to TikTok under her stage name, Jimi Ono, to expose Bell. According to Lingafelt, she started dating Bell when she was 16 and he was 20. And she further explained some of the alleged abuse that occurred during their relationship.
“I moved in with him, I was singing,” Lingafelt explained. “It wasn’t until about a year when the verbal abuse started. And when I say verbal abuse, imagine the worst type of verbal abuse you could ever imagine and that was what I got.”
While Lingafelt noted the abuse was purely verbal at first, she then explained it got physical later. “It then turned into physical — hitting, throwing, everything,” she added. “At the pinnacle of it, he drug me down the stairs at our house in Los Feliz and my face hit every step on the way down. I have photos of this.”
As for what Bell has to say, he’s denied every claim so far. “I never abused my ex-girlfriend or did so many of the other things Melissa falsely claimed on her Tik Tok video,” he shared in a statement. And he then went on to say that Lingafelt asked him for financial help last year, which he finds suspicious now after these claims.
Lingafelt shared DMs from another one of Bell’s exes to back her claims
It looks like Lingafelt is gathering anecdotal evidence from other women who’ve had romantic involvement with Bell.
“Thank you for speaking out against Drake Bell,” a message to Lingafelt reads, as per her TikTok. “I can personally confirm he had sex with a friend of mine who was 15 years old when he was 20.”
And another message shows a woman named Paydin — assumed to be Paydin LoPachin — also contacting Lingafelt about the allegations.
“Hey Melissa. This is Paydin,” the text starts. “I was Drake’s girlfriend for 5 years after you …. I will stand by your side and back you up as I went through the same horrific verbal, physical and mental abuse.” And further texts show LoPachin explaining she was “manipulated and brainwashed” when dating Bell.
“Do you believe us now?” Lingafelt captioned her TikTok showing the texts. “So proud of Paydin, drakes ex of 5 after me for being this brave.”
Bell started dating Janet Von in 2014 — and it’s unclear if they’re still together
After all that’s currently said and done, who is Bell dating now? It’s rumored he’s still with actress and producer Janet Von. According to Distractify, the two were originally seen together in 2014 — and Bell has always been coy when talking about her.
“I have a girlfriend, she’s pretty rad,” Bell told Entertainment Tonight in 2017. “She is in the industry. She was actually just on this cool little Snapchat show called Snapped for Buzzfeed, which was pretty funny, pretty cool. But she’s in the industry; she’s rockin’ it, trying.”
After some prompting from the interviewer, Bell gave a bit more info about how he met Von. “Just mutual friends,” he noted. “A friend of mine, his daughter was out visiting and then she was … and we were all just hanging out, and I was like, ‘Hey, you’re really cool.’ And she thought I was pretty cool too and it worked out.”
Distractify notes news sources can’t seem to figure out if Bell and Von are still together. And it seems Bell is quite private about his personal life as it is, so we may not know for sure. We’re curious to hear if Von will come forward and make her own statement regarding the current allegations, too.
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