Stephen Collins' child sexual abuse scandal subject of bombshell documentary

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...cumentary.html

By EVE BUCKLAND FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 17:25 EST, 5 March 2025 | Updated: 17:32 EST, 5 March 2025

Disgraced 7th Heaven actor Stephen Collins' child molestation scandal is to be the subject of a bombshell new documentary.

Collins, 77, known for portraying lovable dad and pastor Eric Camden on the WB show, saw his career implode in 2014 after he admitted to sexually abusing three underage girls from 1973-1994.

Collins' past misconduct came to light in October of 2014, when he was heard in audio published on TMZ speaking in 2012 about sex acts with minors he had committed during the years 1973, 1982 and 1994.

He insisted he had inappropriately touched a minor on only one occasion, in 1973, but went on to expose himself to two other underage girls between then and 1994.

During a taped sit-down with Katie Couric for 20/20 that month, he denied being a pedophile. He was investigated by police but never charged with any crimes as the statue of limitations was up.

New six part Investigation Discovery documentary series, Hollywood Demons' premiere episode, Stephen Collins: America’s Dad, 'tells the story of Collins and other stars who are far from the characters they play', per People.

A harrowing teaser features archive footage of Collins discussing the success of 7th Heaven years before his misconduct came to light.

The film will also include a 'shocking, tell-all interview with one of Collins’ alleged victims' and 7th Heaven cast members - who condemned Collins in September 2024 - including Jeremy London will also discuss how they felt when they heard about the allegations against Collins.

Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky and culture writer Scaachi Koul will appear to share their perspectives on each scandal.

The series pulls back 'the glamorous curtain of fame to expose the hidden struggles, sacrifices and scandals of life in the spotlight.

'Each gripping two-hour episode features accounts from Hollywood insiders, project collaborators, and survivors who endured harrowing abuse and struggles.'

Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills castmate Taylor Armstrong also features in the trailer, saying: 'The majority of people don’t know the true story.'

The series also includes Child Stars Gone Violent about the 'path of crime, addiction and violence' that has plagued former young stars - with Brian Bonsall of Family Ties and Dee Jay Daniels of The Hughleys appearing.

Other episodes include The Dark Side of the Power Rangers on April 7; Housewives Gone Bad premiering April 14; The Real Iron Claw on April 21; and Stalking the Stars premiering on April 28.

After Collins' misconduct came to light he subsequently submitted a statement to People in December of 2014 saying that he had 'not had an impulse to act out in any such way' in the two decades since the last incident.

'Forty years ago, I did something terribly wrong that I deeply regret. I have been working to atone for it ever since,' he said in the statement. 'I've decided to address these issues publicly because two months ago, various news organizations published a recording made by my then-wife, Faye Grant, during a confidential marriage therapy session in January, 2012.

'This session was recorded without the therapist's or my knowledge or consent. On the recording, I described events that took place 20, 32 and 40 years ago.

Collins said, 'The publication of the recording has resulted in assumptions and innuendos about what I did that go far beyond what actually occurred. As difficult as this is, I want people to know the truth.'

Collins lost a number of roles he was playing at the time, while submitting his resignation to the board of SAG-AFTRA. Reruns of 7th Heaven were taken off the air in the wake of the story.

During an interview with Couric Collins said that while his actions were 'terrible', he does not fit the definition of a pedophile.

'A pedophile is someone who is mainly or wholly attracted to children. I'm not,' he told Couric.

'I had a distortion in my thinking where I acted out in those ways.

'But I'm absolutely not attracted, physically or sexually attracted to children. I'm just not.'

He also said that he was a victim of several unwanted sexual advances from an adult woman in 'various states of undress' when he was a boy. This lead to what he called 'distorted thinking.'

'I did have someone in my life when I was between the ages of 10 and 15, an older woman, who repeatedly exposed herself to me,' Collins told the Yahoo Global News.

He told Couric his victims were 10, 13 and 14 – and he wasn't trying to bring up the older woman as an 'excuse.'

'That distorted my perception in such a way that some part of me felt – I never felt like I was molested. That word never crossed my mind as a 10 to 15-year-old boy. It was a very intense experience.'

'I think somewhere in my brain I got the equation that, 'Well, this isn't so terrible. This person who I trust is doing it…There was a power that she had over me that was intense. … It's also about a very distorted form of approval, he continued, adding that the woman was in various states of undress or completely undressed 'quite a few times.'

Collins added that he's not 'blaming' the woman for his actions, but 'I think that's an aspect that went into my own distorted thinking as a young man. It's the thing that makes the most sense to me' when answering the question of 'Why?'

Collins told Couric that he has is not attracted to children, and that the one incident in 1973, when he did make physical contact with one of the girls, woke him up and stopped him immediately from going further.

It was the opposite of excitement or gratification,' he said.

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7th Heaven stars sickened as they hear extent of Stephen Collins' child sex abuse scandal for the first time

• Collins admitted to inappropriate conduct with three underage girls
• His behavior has been put under the microscope in a new docuseries

By CYDNEY YEATES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 12:02 EDT, 20 March 2025 | Updated: 14:13 EDT, 20 March 2025

Two cast members of 7th Heaven were left visibly spooked after hearing the extent of Stephen Collins' sex abuse scandal in his own words, while one of his victims accused him of 'downplaying' the extent of his abuse in a bombshell new Investigation Discovery documentary.

Collins, 77, known for portraying lovable dad and pastor Eric Camden on the WB show, saw his career implode in 2014 after he admitted to inappropriate conduct with three underage girls years prior.

His past misconduct came to light in October of 2014, when TMZ published an audio from 2012 that saw him speaking abut inappropriately touching a minor in 1973, and exposing himself to two other underage girls in 1982 and 1994.

In the audio, which was reportedly recorded by his ex-wife Faye Grant during a therapy session, he could be heard telling his wife about one instance involving a young girl, a relative of his first wife, who he said he'd exposed himself to 'a couple of times'.

'There was one moment of touching where her hand, I put her hand on my penis,' he said. He then described two other instances with young girls, one involving another girl who was between 12 and 13 at the time.

During a taped sit-down with Katie Couric for 20/20 that month, he denied being a pedophile.

He was investigated by police but never charged with any crimes as the statute of limitations was up.

Collins' scandal is now set to be put under the microscope in the first episode of ID's new series, Hollywood Demons, which will premiere on March 24.

During the episode, Collins' 7th Heaven costars Kyle Searles and Jeremy London listened to his admission.

Kyle, 39, played Mac in the acclaimed series for 27 episodes between 2004 and 2007.

He was visibly sickened while responding to Collins' interview as he exclaimed: 'I had no idea the first one was 10 [years old]. All three are wrong, don't get me wrong... I'm kind of shaking right now.'

Kyle grimaced as he continued: 'This is the first time that I've ever thought that he's full of s**t. No, I am not satisfied with this. I have a knot in my stomach.

'My whole world changed when I had kids of my own. My whole world view and certainly my tolerance for this.

'I think that goes without being said, but you know what I mean. I just think that I put him up on a professional pedestal a bit too much.'

Fellow costar Jeremy, who played Chandler Hampton, was also left heartbroken after hearing Collins' admission for the first time.

'It’s tough, it's hard,' he eventually managed.

'I'm a dad first and foremost, above everything else. So, my first thought goes to the children. Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child.'

During the episode, Collins' second victim April Price also spoke out, and accused Collins' of 'downplaying' what happened between them in his ABC 2020 interview.

During his chat with ABC 2020, Collins claimed that the look on April's face after he'd exposed himself had 'stopped everything cold'.

But speaking for herself in the documentary, April fiercely refuted his claims, and said he exposed himself again after the initial incident.

'That's not what happened,' she said of his recollection that he stopped after just one time. 'The way that he portrayed it, that it only happened once, sent me into a fury.

'He's trying to save his career and he's downplaying it but on the other hand is the person that it happened to. I was enraged.'

April said she was 13 during her interaction with Collins.

She recalled one time when she had asked him to hook up her games controller to her aunt's television.

'He's in the living room in my aunt's apartment, hooking up that Atari and he turned around and his jeans were completely open and he's completely exposed,' she said.

'At this point, now I'm completely flustered. How do you react to that? What's the purpose of this?

'All I know is that I was shocked, extremely uncomfortable, and still didn't want to insult him because he was kind to me and nice and doing me a favor.

'I'm trying to look him in the face and have a conversation with him as if nothing was going on. He chit chatted for a little bit and then left.'

She claimed the second instance happened days before she was due to head back home to Oklahoma.

She had been sunbathing in her swimsuit when Collins allegedly approached her and asked if she wanted to see some of his Tales of the Gold Monkey memorabilia inside his apartment.

Remembering the instance, she alleged: 'The memorabilia is on the top of this credenza.

'Am standing there looking at it and he goes, "Do you mind if I go and get more comfortable?"

'So I'm looking at this stuff, and he comes walking back from the bedroom completely nude and my stomach just fell.

'Now I'm actually scared. 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.'

April claimed that the entire instance lasted for about 20 minutes until she noticed her aunt through the window coming back from work.

'I was completely helpless and defenseless in his apartment,' she added.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Collins for comment.

‘7th Heaven’ Actors Confronted With Co-Star’s Horrific Abuse

Two of 7th Heaven actor Stephen Collins’ co-stars hear him confess to the sexual assaults of multiple children for the first time in a new Investigation Discovery docuseries Hollywood Demons.

The first episode of the weekly series, which airs on ID Mar. 24 at 9 p.m. ET and will be available to stream on Max, focuses on Collins and the fallout from the revelations, featuring interviews with one of Collins’ victims, April Price (who was 13 when she says he sexually abused her), along with actors Jeremy London and Kyle Searles, who each appeared alongside Collins in the long-running family drama.

London wasn’t the only 7th Heaven actor to have his mind changed from hearing the recording for the first time in the series. Though Collins’ confessions had been widely circulated for years, the doc reveals that some of Collins’ co-stars had put their “head in the sand,” as London describes it.

Kyle Searles, who played Mac on the show for its last four seasons, has a similar experience in the episode. He first speaks of admiring Collins just as London did.

“He would drive to work in a beautiful Toyota Prius every single morning,” Searles recalls, “when the man was making enough money that he could have been driving up in a Bentley. He could have been decked out dressed in the nines, but he was wearing what Jay Leno typically wears, with the blue jeans shirt and jeans,” he continues. “I always felt like I want to be like that. I need to model myself after him more.” The next viewers see of Searles, he’s standing tearfully in front of a laptop, from which he’s just listened to Collins' confess to the assaults. “Stephen Collins was most certainly America’s dad,” London, also known for his lead role in the 1995 comedy Mallrats, says in the docuseries, before hearing the tapes. “I mean, I wanted him to be my dad. I still want him to be my dad,” he continued, not quite ready to condemn the former colleague he’d looked up to.

London’s time on the show ended when he was “fired,” he says, following a DUI arrest in 2010. The now 52-year-old was ostracized for allegedly battering his ex-wife, he adds, weeping as he recalls the fallout around his new identity as “a bad person.” He then tells Demons producers he’s hesitated to believe what’s been said about Collins because, “I was put in the same position and I didn’t do anything.”

London characterizes the accusations against his former co-star as “messing with somebody that I love and care about.” To “see anybody messing with him, it still makes my blood boil,” he continues.

His tone changes drastically in the doc, however, when producers play him a recording of Collins confessing to the assaults of several young victims, with one as young as 10 years old. “Its tough. It’s hard,” London says later, reacting to the tape. “I’m a dad, first and foremost, above everything else. And so my first thoughts always go to the children. Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child.”

Both London and Searles say they had heard of the accusations against Collins, who plays a reverend and the Camden family patriarch Eric Camden, but neither had heard his confessions to the crimes in his own words.

The first confession to the sexual assaults of three girls comes in the form of a secretly recorded tape from a therapy session with Collins’ and his then-wife Faye Grant that was released to the press in 2014. Later, Collins would also admit the assaults publicly, most notably in an interview with ABC News. He was never charged for the abuse, however, because the cases were beyond the statute of limitations.

“This is the first time that I’ve ever thought that he’s full of s--t,” Searles says. “I have like, a knot in my stomach. My whole world changed when I had kids, my whole world view. And certainly my tolerance for this. I think that goes without being said.” He adds, “I just think that maybe I put him up on a professional pedestal a bit too much.”

Collins' other co-stars, Beverley Mitchell, David Gallagher and Mackenzie Rosman, addressed the accusations against him during their 7th Heaven rewatch podcast in September. “We do think it’s important that we say something about Stephen Collins,” Mitchell said at the time, adding, “We do not excuse or condone his behavior” and clarifying that none of the three actors “any inappropriate experiences with Stephen.”

[JO Sweet Heart]

The other casts members are the very reason why I purchased the whole show on DVD when the horrific news was first announced.

God bless you and them always!!!

Holly