Stephen Collins has recorded an interview with Katie Couric. Source: Getty Images

Clearly troubled by the onset of questions about his sexual misconduct with underage girls decades ago, Collins painfully answered inquiries posed by Katie Couric in a new clip from their interview set to air on 20/20.

When asked flat-out if he’s a paedophile, a bleary-eyed Collins, 67, said he doesn’t fit the “clinical or dictionary definition” of the term. “I am not,” he said. “A paedophile is someone who is mainly or wholly attracted to children. I’m not.”

In a 1,000-word statement to Peopleearlier this week, he confessed to having sexual contact with three underage girls between 1973 and 1994.

“I had a distortion in my thinking where I acted out in those ways,” he explained. “But I am absolutely not attracted, physically or sexually attracted, to children.”

The 7th Heaven star also relayed that a therapist assured him that he was not a paedophile and an individual with such a condition would have acted out more. Seemingly at a loss for words, Collins said, “They were terrible and I regret them deeply … I don’t look at young women that way. I don’t and I never did.”

The cast of 7th Heaven. Source: News Corp Australia

He chalked up his actions to mental “distortion” and a need for attention. “It was not a desire to be in sexual contact with them.”

Collins became visibly upset when Couric asked if he was attracted to young boys. It’s a question pegged to an email allegedly sent from Collins’ estranged wife, Faye Grant, that stated: “The comment you made just before I gave birth to our daughter when you said you hoped we didn’t have a little boy, because ‘you just didn’t know if you could keep his little penis out of your mouth’ was indication enough that you were sick.”

With his head thrown back while letting out a loud sigh, Collins denied the validity of Grant’s claim, saying, “It’s something that she made up. She wanted to put it out there. It, too, leaves me speechless.”

Stephen Collins is 67 years old. Source: Getty Images

This article originally appeared in the New York Post.