Whatever Happened To The Dad From 7th Heaven?
Stephen Collins has been a prolific actor for five decades. With over 75 credits to his name, the performer has long been a staple of the worlds of film and television. However, Collins is best known for his role as Reverend Eric Camden on the long-running CW series "7th Heaven."
While the weekly drama has reentered the modern consciousness mostly through YouTube and TikTok videos mocking its Puritan values and ridiculous storylines, nine years ago, people were talking about "7th Heaven" again for a very different reason. Collins, who had essentially portrayed a moral paragon for 11 years on television, had been caught in the kind of scandal that celebs don't generally come back from.
After the New York City Police Department received a tape, purportedly of Collins, admitting to having sexual relations with minors, the actor was pretty much finished, despite not being prosecuted for the crimes. A couple of months later, the performer even admitted in a statement to People to three separate instances over the course of his career of inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor.
Stephen Collins' career didn't recover from the scandal
Stephen Collins was married to actress Faye Grant at the time, and she had made recordings of a marriage counseling session that eventually came into the hands of TMZ. On the recording, Collins admits to molesting a family member of his previous wife and also exposing himself to minors. Grant subsequently divorced the actor, and his career has been in shambles ever since.
Though Collins escaped prosecution for his crimes due to the statute of limitations expiring on these incidents, the actor subsequently moved to Iowa, where he has reportedly remarried, this time to a woman four decades younger than him. While many hit series from the '90s and '00s have seen revivals in recent years, it's unlikely that "7th Heaven" will follow suit with this kind of dark scandal hanging over the show.
Though Beverley Mitchell, who played middle daughter Lucy Camden in "7th Heaven," stirred up talks of a possible revival of the series in 2019, it seems like it's safe to say that this is more or less off the table. Many cast members from the series are still performing today, but the same cannot be said about the actors who played the Camden parents. Not only is Collins disgraced, but Catherine Hicks, who played matriarch Annie Camden, has also retired from acting and has no interest in coming back.