Nicole Eggert Says She Contemplated Suicide Over Alleged Abuse

Nicole Eggert has revealed that the alleged abuse she suffered by Scott Baio led her to contemplate suicide at 15 years old.

The actress, now 46, filed a police report on Tuesday after publicly accusing her Charles In Charge co-star Scott Baio of sexual abuse, starting when she was 14 and Baio was 25. He has continued to deny the allegations, but admitted that the pair had consensual sex “well after she turned 18.”

Eggert claims that the continued sexual and emotional abuse put the actress in a dark place as a teen.

“In those days I had moments of being so hurt and so upset, and even thoughts of ending my life,” she told Entertainment Tonight.

She also recalled a heartbreaking moment when she considered taking her life.

“I was 15 years old standing on the bridge over the L.A. River at Ventura and Vineland in Studio City, and I looked down at that dry river bed and I’m sobbing, I’m sobbing,” Eggert said. “I’m sobbing and I looked at it, and I said to myself, ‘It’s not a legit bridge, you’re not going to die, you’re going to break a lot of bones and you’re not even going to kill yourself. Get home.’ You know, crying even harder, because, like, ‘You idiot, what were you just thinking?’ But you are lost, and hormones are going and raging, and just sexual hormones, you know? Growing hormones.”

Eggert alleges that Baio used his career status and their partnership on Charles In Charge to manipulate her, first penetrating her with his fingers in his car at 14. She went on to allege that the abuse continued “probably once a week” until she was 16.

“What’s going through my mind is that it’s my first sexual experience,” the actress said. “I don’t know what’s going through everyone’s minds. Like, ‘Oh, is this strange? Whoa, what is that? Maybe this doesn’t feel so bad?’ And the thing is, for so long I hid it because I thought because I didn’t fight back, and because he wasn’t holding me down, that it made it OK — that I was to blame as well.”

“I think that’s a message people really need to understand,” she continued. “It’s that he should have known better. He was the adult, I was the child. I had never been with a boy before. I had never been touched that way — by anybody. And he played on my emotions, my hormones — all of it.”

She said the two had sexual intercourse when she was 17 and Baio was 28, “and it wasn’t until, you know getting a little bit older that I started to realize this — this is not love,” she said previously on Megyn Kelly Today.

Eggert claims Baio also abused her emotionally and physically throughout their time on set.

“It started with shaming — fat shaming me all the time,” she told ET. “[He told me to] stay away from craft service. You know, ‘Everybody watch out! Nicole, don’t go near craft service!’ … And then it became physical — grabbing me by the hair, dragging me around, pushing me, tripping me.”

An LAPD spokesperson confirmed to the outlet on Wednesday that Robbery-Homicide detectives met with Eggert on Tuesday, and are investigating her allegations against Baio.

“The investigation has begun and we plan on fully cooperating with the LAPD and giving them as much information from Nicole and our team as possible, but it has begun,” Eggert’s manager David Weintraub said.

Meanwhile, Baio has maintained his innocence, claiming that Eggert is “provably wrong” and “deliberately lying.”

Photo credit: Getty / gotpap / Bauer-Griffin