Breaking his silence ... Stephen Collins has opened up about his “inappropriate” encounters with underage girls. Picture: Getty Source: Getty Images

“I did have someone in my life when I was between the ages of about 10 and 15, an older woman, who repeatedly exposed herself to me,” the embattled 7th Heaven star told Yahoo’s Katie Couric in an interview. “And I think that distorted my perception in such a way that some part of me thought … I got the equation of, ‘Well, this isn’t so terrible. This person who I trust is doing it.’”

Collins, 67, says the woman’s conduct is “not why” he behaved inappropriately with children between 1973 and 1994, but “it’s the thing that makes the most sense to me” when answering the question of “Why?”

“There was a power that she had over me that was intense. … It’s also about a very distorted form of approval,” he continued, adding that the woman was in various states of undress or completely undressed “quite a few times.”

The first girl Collins had sexual contact with was just 10 years old, and inappropriate incidents took place over the course of about a year.

Shocking details ... Collins has described in detail how he abused a 10-year-old girl. Picture: FilmMagic Source: Getty Images

In 1973 there were two occasions when I exposed myself to this young woman and several months later she came to visit and stay with my first wife and me. My wife had gone to sleep and she and I were watching TV alone together and I took her hand and moved it in such a way that she was touching me inappropriately. Neither of us moved. I knew immediately at that moment, I knew that something unthinkably wrong had just happened that I couldn’t take back and I think we both just sat there. We really didn’t move a muscle and after about 45 seconds I took her hand and moved it back. I waited a couple minutes because I didn’t know what to do or say and then I got up and left the room and I never had any physical contact with her of any inappropriate kind after that. That was the only physical contact I have ever actually had with any minor.

TV dad ... Collins (centre) with the cast of "7th Heaven". Source: News Limited

Collins said the moment was a combination of “poor impulse control, 25-year-old arrogance, really lousy judgment, an outsized need for attention [and] the effects of some distorted thinking that I had sexually due to the things that have happened to me in my childhood.”

In 1982 and 1994 he exposed himself on two occasions to a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old girl. “I did not know either of them really well but they were not strangers,” he said. In regards to the minor in 1982, he described her face as “disoriented” and “frightened,” and he quickly covered up.

He claims that he has not engaged in inappropriate behaviour post-1994, and by 1996 he’d joined the cast of 7th Heaven as the wholesome Reverend Eric Camden, the father of seven children played by actors including Jessica Biel and Beverly Mitchell.

Couric noted how fans were outraged when news of Collins’ indiscretions broke, saying things like “they could never watch the show the same way again” and “childhood ruined.” She asked if there was anything he would like to say to the fans.

“I would say I’m very sorry that anything that I did disappoints you that way, but I would hope that you could know and see 7th Heaven as a time that is completely carved away from all of these incidents.”

’Very sorry’ ... Collins has apologised to the fans of 7th Heaven who he disappointed. Picture: AP Source: AP

In October, TMZ first leaked tapes of a private therapy session with Collins and his estranged wife, Faye Grant. During the session, Collins admits to sexual contact with underage girls.

Although Grant has repeatedly denied leaking the tapes, Collins says that during a divorce mediation she pulled him aside, telling him she recorded the session. “I kind of went into shock. And she said, ‘Here’s our settlement. You’re going to sign it now, or this recording is going to find its way into the media.’” Couric asked Collins if Grant extorted him, but the 7th Heaven actor quickly shut down the question, saying that it was a legal matter that he would not be pursuing.

Collins finally addressed the scandal publicly for the first time earlier this week in People magazine, describing the incidents and declaring his regret for his actions.

The actor maintains that he is not a paedophile. When asked bluntly if he’s a paedophile, a bleary-eyed Collins told Couric he doesn’t fit the “clinical or dictionary definition” of the term.

“I am not,” he said in a clip released early Friday. “A paedophile is someone who is mainly or wholly attracted to children. I’m not.”

Collins revealed that he is still in therapy and will remain in therapy out of “respect to those girls.” He teared up as he attempted to send an apology to the girls, promising that nothing like this would ever happen again.

This story originally appeared onNYPost.com.