“Baywatch” actor Gregory Alan Williams breaks down in new docuseries: 'I was not what they were selling'

He played Garner Ellerbee in the 1990s "show that celebrated European beauty."

Baywatch actor Gregory Alan Williams, who played Sgt. Garner Ellerbee on the popular lifeguard series and its spinoff, Baywatch Nights, needed a break from filming his interview on the new Hulu docuseries After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun. Looking back at some of his experiences as a Black actor on the show was, at times, too much.

The emotional moment came in the third episode, as Williams recalled an experience from the show's first season. He had been invited by a producer to attend a promotional shoot at the beach, only to be told when he got there that he wasn't needed.

"That walk back across that sand was the longest walk I've ever taken in my life," he said.

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"I realized that I was not what they were selling. Baywatch was a show that celebrated European beauty," Williams said. "So, at that point, I put up a wall between myself and the show and decided I would have the fun and make the money, but I wasn't going to let it hurt me. Those were Baywatch lessons."

"Baywatch was of great value to me," Williams continued. "It taught me. It empowered me. Every now and then it hurt me — but so do the people and the things we love."

Williams became emotional and requested a break. When he returned, he said he was grateful: "I really needed a chance to work through this s---, man."

Williams starred on the show for the first five seasons before moving to the spinoff.

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After Baywatch acts as a sort of reckoning for series, which ran from 1989-2001. The docuseries looks at Baywatch from the inside out, as cast members speak freely about their experiences.

Actress Alexandra Paul, who played lifeguard Stephanie Holden, said she "kept asking the producers to please give me a boyfriend who was of color." Eventually, they acquiesced. "And so they said, 'Alexandra, we've written in a couple of episodes where you have a boyfriend. And guess what? He's Latin,'" Paul recalled. "And I said, 'Oh, that's great.' And then I read the script, and he's a gang member. And I went back to the producers and I said, 'You cannot make him a gang member.' So they made him an ex-gang member."

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The docuseries noted that TV in general largely failed to accurately depict race and racism in the time of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots, which followed the acquittal of police officers filmed beating Rodney King, a Black man.

"It's a very tumultuous time, particularly all the conversation going on about race," journalist Chris Connelly said. "None of that is touching Baywatch."

Related: Baywatch actor says he'd sneak into female costars' trailers and smell their dirty swimsuits as a teen

After Baywatch notes that Williams had a connection to the riots. Archival footage showed him dragging a man away from a mob, after the man's vehicle was hit with bricks.

"People broke the windows on the Bronco and began beating him — you know, pipes, rods, bricks, fists, bottles. And I watched him slump forward onto the steering wheel," Williams said. "And I'm saying to myself, Man, if you stand here and let these people kill this man in front of you, you can't look yourself in the eye ever again."

After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun is now streaming on Hulu.

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