Stephen Collins may be under fire for allegedly confessing to child molestation, but back in 2000, he was slamming 7th Heaven costar Jessica Biel for posing topless underage.
In an interview with the NY Daily News in 2000, the actor bashed then 17-year-old Biel for her racy photo shoot with Gear magazine, calling it “child pornography.”
“The press has gotten Jessica Biel’s age wrong in their recent stories about her,” he said at the time. “She’s not 18, as has been widely reported. She’s 17, a minor…And as such, Jessica’s photo spread was child pornography. I don’t want my kid to get the message that that’s okay.”
In the photos, Biel wears only tan booty shorts and uses her arms to cover her breasts. A year after taking the controversial pics, Biel told Entertainment Weekly she regretted the spread. “That photo shoot was just a really bad decision on my part and I got myself involved with people who weren’t thinking about me and were instead thinking about what kind of a story they could get out of it,” she said.
Fast-forward 14 years and Collins is now the one making headlines. In audio tapes released by TMZ, Collins allegedly revealed that he came into contact with multiple female children, and at one point, can be heard saying things like, “There was one moment of touching where her hand, I put her hand on my penis.”
While Biel has yet to comment on the news, fellow 7th Heaven alums have come to Collins’ aid.
Catherine Hicks, who played Collins’ on-screen wife, told TMZ: “I have really nothing to say, nothing to hide. I don’t know anything. Stephen’s a good guy in my opinion.” While Kyle Searles, who played recurring character Mac, said that Collins was like a “father figure” to him.
