Stephen Collins admits to sexually abusing female minors
Stephen Collins, the actor best known for his role as a reverend and father in the television show ‘7th Heaven’, has admitted to sexually abusing three female minors.
GeoBeats
Actor Stephen Collins served as the magnetic north of a moral compass on the WB’s “7th Heaven,” doling out advice to his community and children as the insightful Reverend Eric Camden for 11 seasons. But the actor’s life offscreen proved far more sinister.
Investigation Discovery’s “Stephen Collins, America’s Dad,” (Monday, 9 ET/PT and streaming on Max) revisits the bombshell revelations, first aired in 2014, that Collins, now 77, had exposed himself to three young girls. The episode is the first of a six-part ID docuseries, “Hollywood Demons,” which also delves into celebrity stalkers and the difficulties plaguing child stars and cast members of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise.
The Collins installment includes interviews with “7th Heaven” actors Jeremy London and Kyle Searles; April Price, a survivor of Collins’ abuse; and Dr. Drew Pinsky, who provides analysis. Producers say they contacted more than 100 associates of Collins, but nearly all declined to participate or didn’t respond.
Here are the most shocking moments from the documentary.
April Price: ‘This is bad. This is really bad’
Price, then 13, spent the summer of 1983 in Los Angeles with her aunt, a neighbor of Collins’. Price says Collins exposed himself to her twice, including once when he helped her set up her gaming console.
“All I know is I was supremely shocked,” Price says in the episode, “very uncomfortable and still didn’t want to insult him because he was kind to me and nice and doing me a favor.”
At the end of that summer, Collins lured Price into his apartment with memorabilia from the short-lived drama “Tales of the Gold Monkey” (Price was a fan). Once inside his apartment, Collins asked Price if it would be OK if he changed into something more comfortable. He returned completely naked, she says.
“And my stomach just fell, and now I’m actually scared,” she recalls. “I’m in this man’s apartment. I’m in a bathing suit, and he’s naked. This is bad. This is really bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
When Price saw through a window that her aunt had returned home, she used it as an excuse to flee.
In 1997, Price and Collins crossed paths on a set. She says Collins apologized when the two were alone, saying, “’I want you to know what I did was extremely wrong. I feel terrible about it. Please forgive me,’” Price remembers. At the time she viewed it as an earnest atonement, but today she sees it as damage control.
Stephen Collins’ therapy tapes leaked
Collins and his then-wife, Faye Grant, discussed his pattern of abusing young girls in a 2012 therapy session, which Grant recorded without Collins’ knowledge. In the tapes, which TMZ obtained in 2014, Collins spoke about exposing himself repeatedly to one girl, beginning in 1973 when she was 10. He also admitted to forcing the young girl to touch him. Collins also mentioned Price and a third girl, whom he abused in 1994, who was a babysitter for his children.
Jeremy London reaction: ‘Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child’
London, who portrayed minister Chandler Hampton from 2002-04, initially calls Collins “not only one of the finest actors but one of the finest human beings in Hollywood.” But once he learns that Collins admitted on tape to inappropriate encounters with three girls, his stance changes.
“I’m a dad, first and foremost, above everything else,” London, 52, says. “And so my first thoughts always go to the children. Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child.”
Collins has faced no criminal or civil charges stemming from these events. Statues of limitations have passed for Price and the girl abused in 1973. The girl Collins exposed himself to in 1994 has not identified herself publicly.
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