Ashley Johnson has opened up about a disturbing incident from her childhood, revealing that an armed man allegedly tried to abduct her from the set of Growing Pains.
Johnson, now 42, shared the story on a recent episode of her Weird Kids podcast, looking back on her time playing Chrissy Seaver on the ABC sitcom after joining the cast as a young child. The episode revisited an era when child actors were often far less protected on studio lots than performers are today.
During the conversation, she described how little separation there was between audience members and performers on TV sets in the early 1990s, saying security practices were far looser than they are today.
She said the incident happened just after a live taping, at a time when studio lots did not have the kind of screening measures that are now standard.
According to Johnson, she was near her mother when a man broke away from the audience area, grabbed her, and tried to run off with her.
“And then I just remember some guy hops out of the line, and he grabs me up and starts booking it,” Johnson recalled to her cohost Taliesin Jaffe, describing the chaos that followed.
Security personnel were able to stop the man and bring him down, rescuing Johnson before he could get away.
Because she was so young at the time, Johnson said she did not fully understand how serious the situation was in the moment.
Instead, what stood out to her most was that one of her shoes had come off during the struggle — a detail that worried her more than the attempted kidnapping itself.
“All I remember is, like, there was security that somehow got on him after some time,” Johnson explained. “I was clueless as to what was happening but I was very upset”
“I just said, ‘I think I’m going to be in trouble… he took one of my shoes.’ It wasn’t my shoe, it was wardrobe’s shoe.”
The story became even more alarming when it emerged that the man had allegedly sent a threatening letter to the production office beforehand.
Johnson said the note warned that the person was heading to the set with a gun to ‘murder some of the cast.’
Her account has drawn fresh attention to the risks young performers once faced and the limited protections that were in place at the time. It also underscores how much set security has changed in the decades since Growing Pains first aired.
Despite that traumatic experience, Johnson continued building a successful career in entertainment. Born in 1983, she went on to become widely recognized for her work in animation, television, and video games, including Recess, The Last of Us, Blindspot, and her work with the Critical Role cast.