Still family. Stephen Collins‘ 7th Heaven castmates are supporting him after his alleged child molestation confession leaked online Tuesday, Oct. 7. The embattled actor’s former costars Catherine Hicks and Kyle Searles spoke to TMZ in the wake of the scandal, saying they knew Collins as a good person.
“I have really nothing to say, nothing to hide,” Collins’ on-screen wife Hicks, 63, told TMZ. “I don’t know anything. Stephen’s a good guy in my opinion.”
Asked whether anyone on set suspected anything strange, she immediately replied, “Gosh, no!”
The two, along with Collins’ TV family, recently reunited for the first time in eight years. On the beloved WB series, Collins played Rev. Eric Camden, who raised a family of seven kids — Jessica Biel, Beverley Mitchell, Barry Watson, David Gallagher, and Mackenzie Rosman — with Hicks (Annie Camden).
Another costar, Kyle Searles, also told TMZ on Tuesday that Collins was a “father figure” to him on set. Searles, 29, played recurring character Mac on the series from 2004 to 2007.
“On my way to work this morning, I listened to the audio you guys had played,” Searles said in a Skype video. “It was a little shock, there was some confusion because that wasn’t who I remembered. All I can do is tell you who he was whenever I worked with him. Never once had any type of encounter where he was a little inappropriate, nobody in the cast had ever come to me, nor was it ever an issue.”
Searles described Collins as an upstanding human being. “Stephen is somebody I looked up to,” he reflected. “Stephen was by far the most likable, influential, genuine person that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. You know, he knew everybody on set, not just the actors, all by their first name. He was definitely a father figure to everybody on set. I’m sure everybody working with him could attest the same way.”
A recording of Collins, allegedly confessing to molesting three young girls, from a 2012 therapy session, was published by TMZ early Tuesday. Amidst the scandal, Collins was fired from Ted 2 and stepped down from the Board of the Screen Actors Guild. UP TV also pulled reruns of 7th Heaven. Find out more about Collins’ alleged confession here.
Late Tuesday evening, the LAPD responded to false reports of a suspected suicide at Collins’ home in L.A., a police spokesperson told Us Weekly. “No one was home and there was no evidence of any shooting or gunshot, nothing happened.”