Jeremy London wants to stand by his 7th Heaven costar Stephen Collins, admitting he’s only heard “buzzings” of accusations against the star despite Collins publicly confessing more than a decade ago to inappropriate sexual contact with three underage girls.

“What I noticed about Stephen Collins working with young girls and extras,” London said in the first episode of Investigation Discovery’s new six-part series Hollywood Demons, which covers Collins’ rise and fall, “is that I never noticed a damn thing about Stephen Collins working with young girls and extras. He never crossed any lines of any kind.”

London joined the main cast of the popular ABC family drama for its seventh and eighth seasons, between 2002 and 2004. He played the young minister Chandler Hampton, who fills in for Collins’ Reverend Eric Camden who steps away from the pulpit to undergo heart bypass surgery. The characters shared many powerful scenes, and though London’s time on the show pales in comparison to Collins’ 11-season run as the show’s moral center, London still holds Collins as close as one might hold family.

“Stephen Collins was most certainly America’s dad. I mean I wanted him to be my dad. I still want him to be my dad,” he said.

In October 2014, seven years after 7th Heaven aired its final episode, TMZ released an excerpt of a 2012 therapy session involving Collins and then-wife Faye Grant, secretly recorded by Grant, in which Collins admitted to molesting an 11-year-old girl, and having inappropriate contact with others, including exposing himself to a neighbor’s young relative.

That bombshell kicked off a chain of revelations, beginning the next day, when it came to light that Collins had been investigated by the LAPD two years prior, stemming from a report filed by a woman who claimed Collins had molested her as a girl in the 1970s. Collins then admitted publicly to inappropriate sexual contact with three underage female victims between 1973 and 1994, and later sat down with Katie Couric to discuss further.

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He revealed to Couric that he had been sexually harassed in his youth. When asked if he believed himself to be a pedophile, Collins responded, “I do not fit either the clinical or dictionary definition of it. I’m absolutely not attracted, physically or sexually attracted, to children.”

London said that he is able to maintain his high opinion of Collins even now “because people were saying really horrible things about me, that I was a bad person, when I really wasn’t.”

The actor, who rose to fame in the mid-’90s with memorable roles in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats and teen show Party of Five, didn’t choose to leave 7th Heaven after only two seasons. He says he was fired, due to being charged in January 2012 with a misdemeanor count of spousal battery following a custody altercation with ex-wife Melissa Cunningham.

The arrest was the culminating incident in a string of altercations between the couple over their son Lyrik, then 5. It also came two years after a bizarre saga in which London, who has been open about his struggles with addiction, claimed he was kidnapped by a group of men who drove him around, forced him to take drugs, and stole his car. After his mother and twin brother, Dazed and Confused star Jason London, publicly expressed doubts about his story, he filed a restraining order against them, which was denied.

“Hollywood abandoned me and chose to believe lies about me,” London continued. “I think one of the strangest things about the business is the world is watching, always, and it wants to eat you. And it wants you to fail.”

London claimed that he had heard “buzzings” of the crimes that Collins confessed to, “but I wasn’t putting it with my Stephen Collins, because there’s not a chance in hell that my Steve Collins is being accused of these things. You don’t accuse saints of things. My defense was coming from a place where I was put in the same position, and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

When asked directly by producers of the ID docuseries what he knows of Collins’ confessed crimes, London responded, “Whatever, something happened, I don’t know what happened. You’re messing with somebody I love and care about, and to see anybody messing with him, it still makes my blood boil.”

Last September, former 7th Heaven cast members Beverley Mitchell, David Gallagher, and Mackenzie Rosman (all of whom played Collins’ children on the show) addressed their former costar’s admission of abuse. “Before we get into this episode, we do think it’s important that we say something about Stephen Collins,” Mitchell said, cueing up the first episode of their Catching Up With the Camdens rewatch podcast.

“All forms of abuse, sexual abuse of any kind — it’s inexcusable. Victims of abuse need to be shown compassion, and they should be given support,” Gallagher continued, with Rosman adding, “As we rewatch these episodes, it would be impossible not to talk about Stephen, because he was such a big part of the show and our lives. But we want to be clear that we did not have any inappropriate experiences with Stephen.”

No 7th Heaven alums have come forward with allegations against Collins, though some have issued damning statements about him. Catherine Hicks, who played Reverend Camden’s wife Annie for 11 seasons, said in 2016 that she’d agree to a reunion, but “we’d have to open with Stephen’s coffin.”

When informed during the doc of the totality of Collins’ confessed acts, and the allegations made against him, London grew visibly emotional. “It’s tough. It’s hard — I’m a dad first and foremost, above everything else. So my first thoughts always go to the children.”

Parting from his earlier expressions of solidarity, London remarked, “Stephen Collins would be a dead man if that was my child.”

Investigation Discovery’s Hollywood Demons premieres Monday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ID.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.