‘7th Heaven’ Star Barry Watson Reacts To Stephen Collins Pedophilia Scandal

It’s been close to four and a half years since the news about Stephen Collins, who played Rev. Eric Camden on The WB’s “7th Heaven,” and his sexual misconduct with underage girls came to light. In a new episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast, “7th Heaven” alum Barry Watson opened up about his former co-star’s transgressions.

The two, along with second guest Harland Williams, spoke mostly about their 2002 movie, “Sorority Boys,” during the 78-minute podcast, but the last 10 minutes were mainly devoted to Watson’s time on the WB family drama, which aired from 1996 to 2007.

“Was that the most shocking thing you’ve ever heard,” Rosenbaum asked Watson about Collins’ scandal.

“You know, nothing shocks me, man,” the 44-year-old actor replied, before adding, “We were all so close, so, sure.”

After being asked to sum up what happened and if he felt hurt by it all, Watson said: “Stephen’s wife put him on tape and got him to talk about some things that he did…pedophilia in years past and stuff like that…And he admitted to it. But it hurt because that was such a huge part of my life.”

Although Collins played the dad of Watson’s Matt Camden, the actor shared that in real life Collins was “more like a big brother in a lot of ways” than a father figure. Despite working so closely together for so many years, he didn’t suspect anything about the older actor’s past misconducts.

“No, no, no,” Watson told Rosenbaum when he asked about it. “I mean, you know, he’d always talk about women I was dating and stuff like that that were younger, but it was just sort of like asking how it was going.”

The “Smallville” alum, who recently spoke out about a scandal involving his own former co-star, asked if Collins was in jail or had gone to jail at all for it. He asked the question twice after Watson kept saying no.

“No, no. I think he’s been practicing meditation, and he’s just working on himself,” Watson shared. “Because they’ve talked about doing a ‘7th Heaven’ reboot for a while, but, if they ever did it, it wouldn’t involve either parent. It would be all about the kids.”

This led Rosenbaum to ask if he’d ever consider doing a revival or spinoff of the long-running series, to which Watson replied, “I don’t know. If it was put together in the right way, yeah, I would be interested in doing that and hanging out with all those kids again…I would do it again if [actor and fellow podcast guest] Harland played the father. If Harland was Reverend Camden.”

This isn’t the first time “7th Heaven” revival news has been brought up recently, as star Beverley Mitchell told International Business Times last year she had some great ideas for bringing the show back.