‘7th Heaven’ dad Stephen Collins’s ‘monstrous behavior’ reexamined in new docuseries

“Sometimes the biggest monsters have the prettiest faces," one of the women who accused Collins of sexual misconduct says in "Hollywood Demons."

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7th Heaven star Stephen Collins’s child sexual abuse scandal is back in the news.

Hollywood Demons, a new six-part docuseries from Investigation Discovery, spotlights scandals and tragedies in the showbiz world. The first episode, which airs March 24, revisits the molestation accusations against the actor that were made in 2014.

In unauthorized audio recorded during a 2012 couples therapy session with his then-wife Faye Grant, Collins admitted to inappropriate sexual contact with three underage girls — ranging in age from 10 to 13 — between 1973 and 1994. The recording leaked in 2014, amid his divorce from Grant, and Collins publicly apologized for doing “something terribly wrong that I deeply regret.” He detailed the allegations and expressed regret over his behavior in a 20/20-Yahoo interview that year.

April Price, who alleged that Collins exposed himself to her in 1983 when she was 13, tells her story in the docuseries. She was staying with her aunt, a Hollywood producer, when 35-year-old Collins, who lived in the apartment complex, violated her more than once, leaving her feeling “completely defenseless.”

Price also detailed Collins’s apology to her years later, in her 20s, when they bumped into each other.

7th Heaven ran from 1996 to 2007, making Collins and the cast, including Jessica Biel in a breakout role, nationally famous. Collins played Eric Camden, a minister who served as the moral compass of the show. Series actors Jeremy London and Kyle Searles, as well as the WB’s former chairman Garth Ancier, are among those who appear in the docuseries to discuss the scandal and Collins’s behavior on the set.

While Price and another woman filed police reports against Collins, their complaint did not fall within the statute of limitations. Collins has faced no criminal or civil prosecution for his alleged crimes against minors.

Price said Collins was helping set up her Atari when he first exposed himself to her

Price was excited to meet her aunt’s famous neighbor, who was starring in the TV series Tales of the Gold Monkey. Collins, who was 22 years her senior, seemed nice and gave her a signed headshot. She said things quickly turned weird. She was in the kitchen, which opened to a private courtyard, and claimed a "completely naked” Collins appeared outside.

“That was so jarring and so unexpected,” Price said. “I know he saw me standing there.”

Price had an Atari gaming system shipped to her and Collins, who was there when she got the package, said he’d help assemble it for her.

“He's in the living room in my aunt's apartment … and he turned around and his jeans were completely open. And he's completely exposed,” Price said.

She recalled being “supremely shocked” and “completely flustered.” Unsure how to respond, “I'm trying to look him in the face and have a conversation with him as if nothing was going on. He chitchatted for a little bit, and then left.”

Price, who had been sexually abused by a babysitter when she was 4, said her response was to “bury it and not say anything.” She thought nobody would believe her.

Price said Collins lured her into his apartment with the promise of giving her show memorabilia

Price was in the apartment courtyard one day when Collins appeared in a robe and made comments about her “pretty feet” and how she needed to “learn to take a compliment.”

On one of the final days of her visit to L.A., Price was sunning herself in her full-coverage swimsuit when Collins offered to give her Tales of the Gold Monkey memorabilia to take home.

He invited her into his apartment to get it.

“He won't [expose himself] again,” Price recalled thinking. But once inside, Collins emerged from his bedroom “completely nude. My stomach just fell and 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.”

Collins walked around naked talking to Price, screwing in a lightbulb as she sat “rigid and tight and as small as I could make myself. … I was completely defenseless and helpless in his apartment.”

Fortunately her aunt returned home from work early that day. She saw her walk by and ran out the door. She said if her aunt hadn't shown up, "I hate to think what would have happened.”

Price said Collins apologized to her when she was in her 20s

Price later became a script supervisor in Hollywood and watched from afar as Collins continued to find success. However, when he landed his role on 7th Heaven — a show which saw him working with child actors — she confided in her aunt about what she claimed had happened to her.

Price didn’t make her allegations public, but got an apology from Collins sometime around 1997, when she was shooting TV promos for CBS and he was one of the participating actors. She said when he walked in the room and saw her, “He knew … who I was.” When she was alone, he approached her.

“[Collins] said, ‘I want you to know what I did was extremely wrong. I feel terrible about it. Please forgive me,’” Price said. “All of a sudden, I thought, I don't have to worry about this anymore. He's sorry. He is contrite. So I kept my mouth shut. Looking back, I don't think it was sincere. I think it was damage control.”

She added, “Sometimes the biggest monsters have the prettiest faces. You can't just trust that people that are nice to you and kind and charismatic [have good] intentions.”

In Collins’s 2014 apology, he acknowledged that he apologized to “one of the women, 15 years later … and she was extraordinarily gracious.”

Collins publicly criticized Biel for a ‘child porn’ photo shoot during 7th Heaven

Biel, who played Collins’s daughter Mary on the show, famously did a provocative photo shoot in 2000 when she was 17 for Gear magazine, which caused a stir and led to her being written out of 7th Heaven.

A statement Collins made during that time about the scandal is included in the doc. He told the New York Daily News, “The press has gotten Jessica Biel's age wrong in their recent stories about her. "She's not 18, as has been widely reported. She's 17, a minor. And as such, Jessica's photo spread was child pornography."

The doc also revisited how some of Collins’s art may have mirrored the allegations against him. One of the minors he allegedly exposed himself to in 1994 was his child’s babysitter. Two years later, he appeared in the film Babysitter Seduction, in which he sleeps with the nanny, played by Keri Russell.

Collins also wrote erotic thrillers. Eye Contact, published in 1994, has a scene in which a woman exposes herself to a boy. In his 1998 book, Double Exposure, there are parallels to Price’s story — the character peeps in the window to look at his neighbor’s younger sister.

Producers contacted more than 100 Collins associates and nearly everyone declined to participate or didn’t respond

The core cast of 7th Heaven did not participate and those who did had nothing but praise for Collins’s work ethic and behavior on the set. London, Searles and executive Ancier talked about Collins’s apparently exemplary behavior making the show. .

“Stephen Collins was most certainly 'America's dad.' I wanted him to be my dad. I still want him to be my dad,” London said. “I don't know what happened. You're messing with somebody that I love and care about, and to see anybody messing with him, it still makes my blood boil.”

London changed his tune when the allegations against Collins were described to him, saying, “Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child.”

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who appears in the doc, said that he’s friends with Beverley Mitchell, who played Lucy Camden, and she “never reported any issues to me.”

Pinsky said by all accounts Collins “was a nice guy” during the 7th Heaven era. “He is a smart dude. He is engaging and interesting and charming. He is all of those things — and he was engaged in some monstrous behavior.”

Collins now lives with a woman 40 years his junior

Pinsky also says that 77-year-old Collins, who divorced Grant in 2015, “now lives with a woman who is 40 years younger than him. She was a superfan” of the actor before they started dating.

“The age difference, given what we know about his history, does certainly raise an eyebrow,” Pinsky said. “Let's hope he can commit to this woman and not perpetrate on others.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is here for survivors 24/7 with free, anonymous help. 800.656.HOPE (4673) and online.rainn.org.

Hollywood Demons airs weekly beginning March 24 on Investigation Discovery and will be available to stream on Max.

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