7th Heaven Star Stephen Collins Confesses to Sexual Abuse: ‘I Deeply Regret’ It
Stephen Collins, perhaps best known as his role as Reverend Camden on 7th Heaven confessed to molesting underage girls, according to people.com. The magazine has his full statement, which will hit newsstands this weekend.
“Forty years ago, I did something terribly wrong that I deeply regret,” Collins says. “I have been working to atone for it ever since. 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.”
According to the article, Collins will sit down with Katie Couric for an interview that will stream Friday through Yahoo! and air on 20/20 on ABC.
“I did have an opportunity to do so with one of the women, 15 years later,” Collins tells People of apologizing to his former victims. “I apologized and she was extraordinarily gracious. But after I learned in the course of my treatment that my being direct about such matters could actually make things worse for them by opening old wounds, I have not approached the other two women, one of whom is now in her 50s and the other in her 30s.”
Collins’ abuse reports first hit media earlier this year, when TMZ released a recording of one of Collins’ counseling sessions.
The abuse reportedly happened between 1973 and 1994. “I have not had an impulse to act out in any such way” in the last 20 years, he tells People.
