Well-known for his role as a minister on the hit TV series "7th Heaven," Stephen Collins - now involved in a child molestation scandal - also played a priest in a short film. And Collins even volunteered as a lay minister at a Beverly Hills church in real life.
"Between 1996 and 2007, he made millions playing upstanding minister Rev. Eric Camden, the father of seven children, on the WB series "7th Heaven," which became the network's highest-rated show," reports People.
But that's not his only clerical work on film.
He recently made a short film called "Penance" in which he plays a priest who hears a confession, reports Roger Friedman of Show Biz 411. "The short film was made in one day last summer by Emmy-winning stunt coordinator Jeff Wolfe."
Friedman goes onto quote from IMDB: "A man makes the decision to cleanse his inner demons, revealing a buried past that begs the question... can we ever truly find forgiveness? And just how far will one go to get it..."
In discussing the marriage of Collins and actress Faye Grant, People reported, "For 27 years, the couple appeared to be the rare example of a Hollywood marriage that worked, while Collins built a long - and highly paid - career playing squeaky-clean good guys.
Collins began serving as a lay eucharistic minister at All Saints Church, an Episcopal congregation in Beverly Hills, and spoke openly of his religious faith. "It just happened one day out of the blue," he told People. "Just something inside me that said, go to church this weekend."
Collins filed for divorce from Grant in 2012.
In the midst of the couple's ongoing legal dispute over money, the tape of Collins that purports to reveal him admitting to inappropriate conduct with three minors was leaked to TMZ, adds People. Grant admited to making the tape and handing it over to police. She also claimed in court documents that he used a 12-step model for sex addiction and was seeing a "sexual dysfunction" therapist, but refused to seek "proper help or hospitalizations for his predilection towards children."
