International- Bevin Prince's husband said 'if we get struck by lightning, this is where I wanna be,' moments before he was killed by lightning.
- "It was instant," the "One Tree Hill" star recalled, speaking with Good Morning America.
"One Tree Hill" star Bevin Prince recalled that moments before her husband, Will Friend, was struck by lightning and killed in July, he said if he were to die at that moment, "this is where I wanna be."
"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,'" Prince told Good Morning America's Erielle Reshef, speaking about Friend's death for the first time.
She continued: "And then it happened. And it was instant."
Prince and Friend were out boating with their family that day near their home in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. She said she remembered seeing a storm coming in, but that they were monitoring it closely.
"There was no urgency for anyone to get off the water at that time," Prince, who was on a different boat with her dad, told Reshef.
Despite efforts to resuscitate Friend after the strike, Prince said he died instantly.
"I believe it was really his time," Prince said, noting that there was "a lot of divinity" in his death — he was 33 years old, the date he died was July 3, and the exact time of his death, she believes, was 3:13 p.m.
"Knowing that all of the resources were there to potentially save him," Prince said, "I have to believe that something bigger beyond me was calling him."
Prince remembered her husband as "one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life."
"Will lived such a life of purpose," Prince continued. "I feel a responsibility to carry that on and to find my own way to continue to serve in his honor. And that's what my life will be now."
Prince played Bevin Mirskey on "One Tree Hill," the CW teen drama that was filmed in her home state of North Carolina. She was initially cast as an extra who was on the same cheerleading squad as lead characters Brooke Davis (Sophia Bush) and Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton).
Burton drove nearly 700 miles from New York to North Carolina to extend support to Prince in the wake of her husband's death.
"Our friend @bevinaprince is one of those strong ones. She is light personified. As some of you know, her beloved husband @britwilliam passed this week. It's unfathomable. Bevin is a huge part of our OTH family. She and Will believed in Wilmington and the community there so much," Burton wrote about Prince in an Instagram post on July 7.
Prince's role as Bevin Mirskey expanded to a meaningful part of the core friend group that "One Tree Hill" centered on throughout the first five seasons. Mirskey's character provided comic relief to the show's darker elements by showcasing her ditzy personality in a lighthearted way.
When the series opted to skip the cast's college years via a time jump in season five, it was revealed that her character married Tim Smith, another ditz in the crew.