LAPD: Stephen Collins' home shooting report was false alarm
LAPD officers responded Tuesday night to a report that a single gunshot had been fired from inside a home allegedly rented by actor Stephen Collins, ET can confirm, but it was a false alarm.
Police in Tarzana, the Los Angeles neighborhood where the house is located, told ET that the house was empty when officers arrived on the scene.
Rumors that Collins had shot himself exploded on Twitter when former Baywatch actress Donna D'Errico, who lives in the area, tweeted, "That guy from 7th Heaven lives right around the corner from me & just shot himself a few minutes ago..."
She then tweeted out a photo of a number of police cars and the caption, "That's all I know. The police have the street cordoned off and aren't even letting residents in."
Minutes after speculation began that Collins had committed suicide, Los Angeles local news reporters tweeted that police had confirmed no such incident occurred. According to TMZ, sources close to the actor said that Collins was not at home.
D'Errico later apologized on Twitter.
On Tuesday, Collins, 67, became the focus of intense media scrutiny when an audio recording surfaced in which a man, identified as Collins by TMZ, confessed to having sexual contact with children in the past. Collins has subsequently resigned from his seat on the national board of the Screen Actors Guild and has been released from the production of Seth MacFarlane's "Ted 2." Neither Collins nor his reps have yet commented on the recordings, subsequent allegations, or Tuesday night's events.