Stephen Collins: I Am Not a Pedophile
As promised, clips from 7th Heaven star Stephen Collins' one-on-one with Katie Couric continue to be doled out through Yahoo. In the latest preview of the interview airing tonight on 20/20, Collins insists to Couric that he's not a pedophile.
"A pedophile is someone who is mainly or wholly attracted to children. I'm not," he tells Couric. "I had a distortion in my thinking where I acted out in those ways. But I'm absolutely not attracted, physically or sexually attracted to children. I'm just not."
Couric follows up, asking the actor, "If you're not a pedophile, then how would you describe your particular pathology?"After a pregnant pause, he responds, "I think I'm someone who gave in, several times, to exhibitonistic urges. Someone who had big boundary issues as a young man and beyond that...to an extent."
Collins also shoots down stories whose details he believes were falsified as part of his long-running, acrimonious divorce proceeding with his wife, Faye Grant.
In October, TMZ obtained an email by Grant to Collins in which she relates how the actor allegedly told her that he "just didn't know" if could keep their hypothetical son's "little penis out of [his] mouth." (This conversation allegedly happened before the birth of their daughter.)
Grant also claimed in a note to one of Collins' victims that Collins suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder; the actor claims he's never been diagnosed with such a condition.
He also tells Couric about how, as a child, a woman repeatedly exposed herself to him:
Collins also revealed to Couric something about his own childhood that he said may have contributed to his behavior. "I did have someone in my life when I was between the age of about 10 and 15, an older woman, who repeatedly exposed herself to me." He stopped short of blaming the woman for his actions.
"I did these things because, for whatever reasons — and I tried very hard in the last 20 years to understand. I did them. I'm not saying, you know, this woman did this, and therefore I did it."
Collins said he's been in treatment for 20 years and has felt remorse for his victims. He personally apologized to one of them but has been advised against reaching out to the others. "You don't know what kind of old wounds you might open up," he said.
In preview released yesterday, Collins detailed how he "inappropriately touched" an underage girl in 1973.