April claims she was 13 when the '7th Heaven' alum, then 35, exposed his naked body and penis to her on three different occasions.
- Mar 12, 2015
AceShowbiz - A woman who claims she was one of the three girls to whom Stephen Collins exposed himself comes forward with her story in an interview with Mail Online. April Price tells the site that she was 13 when the "7th Heaven" alum, then 35, exposed his naked body and penis to her on three different occasions.
April, who is now 44, a wife and a mother in Oklahoma, recalls the sexual assaults which happened in summer 1983, "I was visiting my aunt. She was an executive producer in Los Angeles. She lived in a walled-in, gated community of apartment complexes and her apartment was kitty corner to Mr Collins."
"As soon as I arrived, I find out that Mr Collins is a neighbor. I got extremely excited because he was the star of the show 'The Tales of the Gold Monkey'. That was a show I didn't miss. It was cool in 1983," she goes on. "Eventually I got the courage up to knock on his door to ask for his autograph and he was kind and said, 'I don't have a photograph here, but I will get one and get it to you.' "
One day, when she was cooking breakfast in her aunt's kitchen, April saw Stephen "walking through the courtyard, right in front of my aunt's big bay window." She says, "He was completely naked. He had no clothes on whatsoever. He had a wad of clothes in his hands. I was taken aback. That was strange. Wow. Who would do that?"
"At the time, I didn't think it was necessarily sinister really, but I thought it was odd. It was not like he tried to cover up. He knew I was there while he was naked. He could see me there," she adds. On the next day, April decided to ask a neighbor about Stephen because she "did think it was extremely bizarre behavior. We don't go around naked here."
"She tells me he had just been filming in France, so of course, my Oklahoma and thinks, 'Oh, okay. It's France. It's weird, whatever. It's an aberration.' I let it go," she says. Days later, April met Stephen in the courtyard and asked him about how to hook up an adapter chord for her Atari. "I forgot to pack the adapter chord for my Atari to hook it up to the TV. I had no idea how to hook it up," she shares, "I happened to run into Mr Collins in the courtyard. I was explaining this to him and he offered to give it a go. I invite him into my aunt's apartment and I took him into the living room where the TV was and he started to attempt to fix this."
Later, Stephen exposed himself to her. "I don't know at what point he did it, but when he turned around, his pants were completely unfastened. His penis was hanging out and I'm just shocked," she recalls, "He doesn't make any mention of it. He doesn't act any differently. So I decided to play along and didn't say anything either. I just acted like it was not out, which was weird because it was hanging out of his pants."
When asked whether she's afraid he would rape her, April says, "Honestly, I was 13 and hadn't even kissed a boy yet. This was not something I was even remotely prepared for in my life and I shut down. He was acting normal so I was determined to do the same. I kept my gaze at eye level. I didn't want to be rude. He was doing something for me. He was fixing something for me. I didn't want him to think i wasn't appreciative of that. He'd fixed my Atari and went home."
The next time Stephen exposed himself to April when he invited her to his apartment to show some memorabilia of his show "Tales of the Gold Monkey". At his apartment, Stephen asked April, "Do you mind if I get more comfortable?" She recalls, "I'm in his apartment. What am I going to say? So he goes back into his bedroom and he comes back out into the living room and he is completely naked. Totally naked. And my heart fell. This was terrifying."
She adds, "I remember I just sat there on his couch as tight as I can be. Arms together, legs together. I'm thinking to myself. oh my gosh, oh my god. And he is nonchalantly fixing some light or fixture that is three feet away from me. It was a standing light and I think he was changing the bulb. But he puts his genitalia right at my eye level."
"I was panicked," she adds. "I don't know if I was afraid for my life, but...I don't think he ever made me feel that he was capable of physical harm. But I was not prepared on any level to handle that at my age. I shouldn't have had to see that, at that point in my life."
April "bolted out of the door" when she saw her aunt walking by the window. She didn't see Stephen again until years later, when she was working the craft service table on the set of '7th Heaven'. "He was very intense," she recalls of meeting Stephen. "He said, 'I want you to understand what I did. I know it was extremely wrong. I really apologize for it, if I ever made you uncomfortable.' "
