Barry Watson is acknowledging a strange moment from the pilot episode of 7th Heaven.
During a Sunday, March 17, panel at ‘90s Con in Hartford, Connecticut, Watson, 49, responded to a fan who asked about the almost-kiss between himself and Jessica Biel, who played siblings Matt and Mary Camden, in the show’s first episode.
“I knew then, I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this,’” Waston recalled, per People. “And I found out from Brenda [Hampton], the creator, that it was [executive producer] Aaron [Spelling] that insisted on having that scene. That was the only time I ever questioned Aaron’s creativity because I always think, ‘This would never happen.’”
During the scene in question, Mary asked her older brother for kissing tips before closing her eyes and leaning in for a smooch. The duo were then caught by their father, Eric Camden (Stephen Collins), who merely stared at them in confusion.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Matt told his dad, who replied, “That’s a relief.”
Catherine Hicks, who played the family matriarch, Annie Camden, on the WB series, asked Watson on Sunday whether he and Biel, 42, actually “made out” during the scene.
“No!” Watson responded before quipping, “Of course, back then, Jessie probably wouldn’t have minded.”
Elsewhere during the panel, Hicks, 72, said both Biel and Beverley Mitchell, who played Lucy Camden, “had such a crush” on Watson while filming the show, which ran from 1996 to 2006.
“They were, like, so in love with him,” she said.
“We were all in love with Barry,” David Gallagher, who played Simon Camden, chimed in.
Watson then revealed that his costars weren’t exactly subtle about their feelings for him.
“I’d come out of my trailer, they were always lingering around,” he recalled. “They were trying to act naturally.”
Mitchell, 43, argued that her trailer was “right next” to Watson’s, but Watson shot back that she and Biel would be “on the stairs” waiting outside for him.
While Biel was not present at the panel, she previously opened up about her crush on Watson during a June 2021 appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair expert” podcast.
“Beverley and I had crushes on Barry, who played our older brother, but no one ever dated anybody,” she said. “He was dating, like, real-life women. We were 14 years old. There was no chance for us. It was not happening.”
Mitchell, meanwhile, admitted to the crush during a 2016 entry on her blog, Growing Up Hollywood.
“I am pretty sure every teenage girl had a crush on Barry, I mean look at him. Jess and I did for a minute. I mean it really isn’t fair that he had better hair,” she wrote at the time.
