Actress Sophia Bush recently was on Andy Cohen’s Sirius XM show, ‘Andy Cohen Live’ recently and she finally opened up about what it was really like filming the hit CW show, ‘One Tree Hill’ for nine seasons. Bush spoke about the inexcusable behavior of showrunner Mark Schwan and her 5-month marriage to former co-star, Chad Michael Murray.
In November 2017, ‘One Tree Hill’ creator and showrunner, Mark Schwan was accused of sexual harassment and physical and emotional manipulation by 18 female cast and crew members who worked on the hit show. Among the 18 women, were some of the shows lead females, Hilarie Burton (Peyton), Bethany Joy Lenz (Haley), and Sophia Bush.
“The first time Mark Schwan grabbed my ass, I hit him in front of six other producers, and I hit him f—ing hard,” says Bush. From that point on, Schwan knew not to go near Bush, but that didn’t stop him from harassing other women on set. “You heard comments,” Bush said. “We knew about things he’d say to people, we knew about like, the late-night text, we knew when he was super-obsessed with one girl on our show that he starts trying to bang down her door in the middle of the night. She had to be moved, her rooms were moved. And then her boyfriend came and stayed with her the next month and literally like came to fisticuffs between the two of them.”
“We’re not the only group of girls that’s ever had a boss who was a pig,” Bush said. “That show for us was very interesting because at times it was wonderful and at times it really wasn’t. Our writer’s room was in L.A., so we had plenty of time where [Schwan] wasn’t on set… We had great highlight-reel, coming-of-age, rom-coms—together, and then we also had like, batten down the hatches, he’s coming.”
You must be wondering; why did Bush not leave the show? The 35-year-old actress said, “why am I supposed to suffer and kill my own career because somebody else can’t keep their dick in their pants?” She also added that there was an entire crew of workers to think about. If the show ended, then hundreds of people would have lost their jobs. “It’s not fair to make everybody suffer because one person can’t rein their entitlement in,” She added.
Bush also spoke about her close relationships with many coworkers from ‘One Tree Hill,’ and how once people finally started talking about their interactions with Schwan, it opened her eyes to altercations that she didn’t even know about. For example, Schwan allegedly fired a writer for marrying a woman whom the showrunner had a crush on.
Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray’s Short-Lived Marriage
OTH fans were over the moon when the hit show’s it couple, Brooke Davis and Lucas Scott got married in real life, but now Bush is admitting that she didn’t even want to get married to Murray in the first place.
“It was not a thing I actually really wanted to do. Ladies have to learn how to take up space in a way men are taught they are entitled to,” says Bush. “Everybody’s been 22 and stupid.”
Cohen asked Bush to clarify why she married somebody that she didn’t want to, and she explained how she felt pressured. “Because how do you let everybody down and how do you—what’s the fight and when you have bosses telling you that you’re the only person who gets a person to work on time and 200 people either get to see their kids at night or they don’t because our days start on time,” Bush explained.
Bush and Murray were officially divorced in December 2006, and in 2008, she then started dating another co-star, James Lafferty (Nathan Scott). Lafferty and Bush dated for about a year before she got back together with Austin Nichols (Julian Baker) who was also on ‘One Tree Hill.’ Bush and Nichols broke up in 2012.
“Hilarie [Burton] and I used to laugh and we were like, ‘if we had a behind-the-scenes show, the drama would be so much f**king better than the drama that the writers write,’” Bush joked.
Will There be a ‘One Tree Hill’ Revival?
“People have been saying that for a long time and I really don’t know. I don’t have any intel for anybody,” Bush revealed. “I feel bad when people say, ‘Oh, it can happen’ and then the internet blows up and I’m like, ‘Guys, it’s not happening.’ If there was anything happening they would tell you. But I think with everybody on other jobs and shows, and with kids and lives, I don’t know. Never say never, I guess.”
That’s not a no right? There’s still hope?
Watch Bush’s full interview with Cohen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOSMoFcrCJw&feature=youtu.be
What do you think of Bush’s interview?
Featured Image via Flickr/UN Foundation
