7th Heaven’s Barry Watson addresses Matt and Mary’s almost-kiss
Barry Watson, Jessica Biel.
Getty Images(2)Barry Watson acknowledges an odd moment from the pilot episode of 7th heaven.
During a panel on Sunday, March 17 at ’90s Con in Hartford, Connecticut, Watson, 49, responded to a fan who asked about the almost-kiss between him and Jessica Bielwho played siblings Matt and Mary Camden, in the show’s first episode.
“I knew at the time I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this,’” Waston recalls per People. “And I found out Brenda [Hampton]the creator, that was it [executive producer] Aaron [Spelling] who insisted on having that scene. That was the only time I questioned Aaron’s creativity, because I always think, “This would never happen.”
During the scene in question, Mary asked her older brother for kissing tips before closing her eyes and leaning in for a hug. The duo was then caught by their father, Eric Camden (Stefan Collins), who just stared at them in confusion.
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“This isn’t what it looks like,” Matt told his father, who replied, “That’s a relief.”
Catherine Hickswho played family matriarch Annie Camden on the WB series, asked Watson on Sunday if he and 42-year-old Biel actually “kissed” during the scene.
“No!” Watson responded before joking, “Of course Jessie probably wouldn’t have minded at the time.”
Elsewhere during the panel, Hicks, 72, said both Biel and Beverley Mitchellwho played Lucy Camden, was “so in love” with Watson during filming of the show, which ran from 1996 to 2006.
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“They were so in love with him,” she said.
‘We were all in love with Barry,’ David Gallagherwho played Simon Camden chimed in.
Watson then revealed that his co-stars weren’t exactly subtle about their feelings for him.
“I came out of my trailer, they were always hanging around,” he remembers. “They tried to act natural.”
Mitchell, 43, argued that her trailer was “right next to” Watson’s, but Watson responded that she and Biel would wait for him “on the steps” outside.
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Although Biel did not attend the panel, she previously opened up about her crush on Watson during a June 2021 appearance on Dax Shepard‘s podcast ‘Armchair Expert’.
“Beverley and I had a crush on Barry, who played our older brother, but we never dated anyone,” she said. ‘He dated real women. We were 14 years old. There was no chance for us. It didn’t happen.”
Mitchell, meanwhile, admitted she was in love during a 2016 post on her blog: Growing up in Hollywood.
“I’m pretty sure every teenage girl had a crush on Barry, I mean, look at him. Jess and I did it for a while. I mean, it’s really not fair that he had better hair,” she wrote at the time.