14 DAY TRIAL // As promised, Stephen Collins has broken his silence after the outrageous audio leaked online almost 3 months ago, on which he admitted to molesting at least 3 minor girls decades back. A preview of his full chat with Katie Couric, which will air on ABC tomorrow, Friday, December 19, 2014, is available below.
The full interview streamed live on Yahoo! and comes hot on the heels of an essay Collins penned for People Magazine, which marks the first time he addressed and admitted to the crimes he had already confessed on the recording.
Said audio, we should note, was recorded without his knowledge by his now-estranged wife Faye Grant, during a marriage counseling session. Admittedly, Grant wanted to have his confession on tape so she could take it to the police, because she believed he was about to act out on his urges again.
Collins cries in first TV appearance
Looking drawn and with red, swollen eyes, Collins sat down with a sympathetic Couric, who asked him, smiling benevolently, if he ever felt like he was living a double life – presumably, after the deed was done, until the audio leaked.
For those not up to speed with the scandal, Collins admitted to molesting 3 girls aged 10 to 13, between the years 1973 and 1994. In yesterday’s essay, he said he had apologized to one of them and that he had been working hard to atone for his crimes since ’94.
He did not relapse and had been receiving treatment since, and he had turned to God for strength and guidance.
He says pretty much the same thing in today’s preview, but he also cries. According to Collins, his crimes are in the past and at the time word of them got out online, he had already resolved whatever issues he had when he committed them.
It was not his choice to have all this out there (well, duh!), and to answer Couric’s question, no, he was not leading a double life because he had already worked through his issues by the time of the leak.
It wasn’t as bad as it was made to sound
And then he goes into the specifics: he only touched one girl and then too, there was “no gratification” involved. He did expose himself to all three, but this lasted a couple of minutes tops and he ran away afterwards every time.
“This to excuse what I did – it as inexcusable – but to clarify what actually happened,” he says. With the last incident, he hit “rock bottom” and sought help, and he’s been walking a straight line ever since.
You can probably tell that Collins is trying to distance himself from pedophile accusations, thinking that it would benefit him more if he’d be seen only as a flasher / exhibitionist. He has every motivation to try and clear his name, because he’s already seen most of his career go down the drain since the leak.
Do you think he should be able to redeem himself in the eyes of the public by just hiring a PR crisis manager and defending himself in front of a too-compassionate interviewer? Let us know in the comments section below.
