'One Tree Hill' alum Bevin Prince addresses husband's death for first time

"One Tree Hill" alum Bevin Prince is opening up publicly for the first time after her husband, William Friend, was fatally struck by lightning in July.

The 40-year-old appeared on an episode of the "1on1 With Jon Evans" podcast on Friday, Dec. 3, and called the incident "an absolute living nightmare."

"It was like any other day that we’d done a million times," she told Evans. "The storm was far away, we’re on the boat, everything’s fine. And then in an instant, everything has changed. There’s no normal, and there’s no playbook for it."

Right before he was struck, Prince said that Friend, then the CEO of the digital media company Bisnow, lit a cigar, looked at her father and said, "Mike, well if we get struck by lightning, this is a good place to be."

"Instantly the people that were on the boat next to us, a nurse, an ex-military and a bounty hunter, responded so fast," she continued. "Then, the police boat happened to be driving by right at that moment, just happened to be there. So, they were able to move him to the police boat. In my mind, there was absolutely nothing that could have been done. And I have to accept that this is larger than me and my understanding at this time."

Prince, best known for playing Bevin Mirskey on 'One Tree Hill,' said that both the accident itself and the events leading up to the lightning strike allowed her to process the incident as something bigger than herself, one she couldn't prevent from happening.

When asked what it was like to experience the lightning strike, Prince said that she actually wasn't present. Because her dad's boat had stalled, she had gotten on another boat with the dogs to head back to shore.

Prince's father, brother-in-law and son, all of whom were on the boat with Friend, described the sound as the "most deafening crack you've ever heard," according to Prince.

The actor described the time frame as "awful" and said that, for about two hours, the family was unsure whether or not Friend would recover.

She described life immediately after her husband's death as a "blur," although she felt supported by family and close friends. When talking about being able to get through a recent celebration of life for Friend, Prince said, "I felt in my bones Will holding me up."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com