Growing Pains alum Ashley Johnson revealed she was almost kidnapped as a child while filming the hit ‘90s sitcom.
Johnson, 42, recalled the terrifying experience during the Wednesday, July 8, episode of her “Weird Kids” podcast, detailing that members of the show’s live studio audience would stand close to actors as they exited their trailers.
“I’m walking with my mom and I just remember some guy hops out of the line and he grabs me up and starts booking it,” Johnson, who joined the cast as a six-year-old when she began portraying Chrissy Seaver, said. “He ended up, clearly, going to jail. He had a gun.”
The child star, who currently works as a television voice actress, added that on-set security helped her avoid a very dangerous situation. “All I remember is, like, there was security that somehow got on him after some time. The security comes out, they wrestle him down [and] I just remember flying around in the air,” she told her podcast cohost, Taliesin Jaffe. “I was clueless as to what was happening but I was very upset and they were talking to me about it after.”
Johnson added that she was unable to process the moment as a child, recalling her surprising response to crew members who checked in on her. “I just said, ‘I think I’m going to be in trouble … he took one of my shoes,’” she said. “I had one slipper [and] it wasn’t my shoe, it was wardrobe’s shoe. They got him … [security] saved me.”
The actress also claimed that prior to the almost-kidnapping, a fan of Growing Pains sent in a letter that threatened deadly consequences. “[It read] ‘I am coming to set and I am going to bring a gun and I am going to murder some of the cast,’” Johnson recalled.
Johnson joined Growing Pains, which starred series regulars Kirk Cameron, the late Alan Thicke, Joanna Kerns, Jeremy Miller and Tracey Gold as well as guest star Leonardo DiCaprio during its final season, in its fourth season.
It ran on ABC from 1985 to 1992 and centered on the Seavers, a family with close bonds both on-screen and away from the cameras.
Cameron, 55, said in an interview with Today two days after Thicke’s death following a heart attack at age 69, that the Seaver family felt like a real family. “We laughed and cried together, shared birthday celebrations, Christmas parties, holidays and worked together with the crew as a team to make a really special TV show,” he told the outlet at the time. “We weren’t just a TV family. In many ways, we were a real family.”
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