Bevin Prince finally spoke out after losing her husband five months ago in a bizarre accident. The former One Tree Hill actress sat down in her first televised interview since William Friend was killed by lightning during a boating excursion in North Carolina. “I’m just so proud. I’m so proud that I got to do life with him,” she told ABC News on Friday, Dec. 9. “He was one of the the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life, by far. He lit up every single room he came into. You never forgot when you met Will Friend.”
“I’m so proud that I got to do life with him.”
“One Tree Hill” star Bevin Prince gives first on-camera interview after husband Will Friend was killed by lightning.@eriellereshef has her story. pic.twitter.com/vSSLZlcSPx
— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 9, 2022
A day before the 4th of July, Bevin and William were visiting with family on a lake near their home in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. The star recalled a storm approaching, but said it wasn’t too alarming at first. “We look up and we can see the storm in a distance,” she noted. “But we’d been there so many times, and there was no urgency for anyone to get off the water at that tie. We were watching it.”
In a flash, everything changed, according to Bevin, as she and her dad jumped to another boat just as William was struck by lightning. “It was instant,” she said. “They rushed over to him and, at the time, a police boat happened to be coming by, so they moved him over to the police boat quickly. And from what I’ve heard, you know, spent a lot of time and care trying to resuscitate him.”
In what some would call a wild coincidence, but what Bevin calls “divinity,” the actress went onto say, “Right before it hit him, he lit a cigar and he looked at my father and he said, ‘If we get struck by lightning, Mike, this is where I wanna be.’ And then it happened. I believe it was really his time.” To prove her point, she added, “He was 33 years old. It was July 3 and I believe the exact time that the lightning struck was 3:13 p.m. So knowing that all the resources were there to potentially save him, I have to believe that something bigger beyond me was calling him.”
At the time of the tragedy, Bevin’s co-star Sophia Bush shared a photo of Bevin and William on her Instagram story. In the caption, Sophia wrote, “Heartbroken and at a loss. Our family is grieving for one of our own. Please lift up @bevinaprince in whatever way you are able. Show her the love she deserves; the love her husband always showed her.”
As fans know, the former co-stars rose to fame in 2003, when the hugely popular show debuted. It ended nearly 10 years later, in 2012. Bevin and William wouldn’t get hitched until 2016, however, when they wed in Turks & Caicos.