The Fall Guy’s Heather Thomas Once Shot a Stalker Who Broke Into Her Home

Heather Thomas discovered stardom on The Fall Man, but it surely had an actual draw back.

On the March 17 episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast with Steve Kmetko, Thomas, 67, opened up about why she ended up leaving Hollywood not lengthy after her hit ‘80s TV present The Fall Man ended, as a result of she was overwhelmed and afraid as she dealt with a number of stalkers.

The Fall Man — during which Thomas and Lee Majors performed Hollywood stunt individuals who find yourself fixing crimes — ran from 1981 to 1986. Thomas continued to work after the present ended, showing on TV and in motion pictures like 1990’s Purple Blooded American Lady and 1997’s In opposition to the Legislation.

However by the mid-’90s, she stated, “I was just getting so many stalkers.” She stated it was “really bad,” and needed to cope with “at least two a week.”

“I had tons of restraining orders,” she stated. “I had two little girls, and a guy’s jumping our gate with a giant buck knife. In those days, I don’t know if this is true now, but people would fixate. You could be in a soap commercial, and they would fixate on you.”

“There weren’t a lot of stalker laws, and I just needed to be home anyway,” she stated of the time. Her experiences with stalkers have been “scary.” She remembered, “Someone sent me a box of bullets, and people would send me funeral wreaths they stole from a graveyard.”

“I always had a bodyguard in the house because that’s where I didn’t want to come home to a dark house,” she stated.

However in a single significantly harrowing incident, “I had one guy one night cut my screen in my bedroom and got in, and I shot him,” she stated, noting that she had rock salt in her gun. She instructed Kmetko that she didn’t know if the person ever went to jail.

The stalking nonetheless went on for a couple of years after she left the enterprise. Thomas stated she doesn’t typically communicate concerning the stalking she endured as a result of she doesn’t wish to be “the lady that was stalked.” She stated that she additionally determined to depart the enterprise so she may very well be residence extra typically for her youngsters, who, she stated “didn’t know much” concerning the stalking on the time.

Thomas stated that in more moderen years she has returned to appearing. In 2024, she and Majors, 85, cameoed within the movie The Fall Man, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt and impressed by their authentic TV collection. 

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Thomas additionally opened up on the podcast about how she was sexualized by Hollywood within the Nineteen Eighties. “I think there’s a certain amount of disassociation,” she defined. She checked out it as a part of her “business.” “It was a way I sold things,” she defined. Plus, she was “happy” along with her physique and “worked hard.” 

Nonetheless, when she first began working within the enterprise as a pupil at UCLA, she was targeted on writing and directing, but it surely was “rough” for ladies. She was “making so much money” as an actress that she “went with the flow of least resistance” and selected appearing over behind-the-scenes work, she added.