A messy divorce, the deaths of multiple family members and friends,
and alleged abuse allegations. Sophia Bush hasn't had it easy.
Sophia Bush is probably best known for playing Brooke Davis on "One Tree Hill," but the much
loved teen drama hid a dark side. In the wake of the MeToo movement, Bush, along with 17 other
women who worked on the show, accused showrunner Mark Schwahn of sexual misconduct. Per Variety,
the 18 women alleged that Schwahn engaged in psychological and emotional abuse,
manifesting in PTSD for some of the accusers. They were also warned against speaking out,
and told that doing so would cost many people their jobs.
"I went straight from my junior year of college on to One Tree Hill."
During an appearance on "Pretty Big Deal with Ashley Graham," Bush revealed that she was
pressured into filming scenes that would require her to wear lingerie, explaining,
"I remember my boss kept writing scenes for me to be in my underwear. And I was like,
'I'm not doing this. This is inappropriate. Like,
I don't think this is what we should be teaching 16-year-old girls to be doing.'"
"I remember I showed up in the next episode in a turtleneck, just sort of to be spiteful."
Additionally, during an appearance on "Radio Andy," Bush alleged that she had smacked
Schwahn for groping her buttocks. Speaking with The Guardian, the "Good Sam" star said
she hoped telling her story would encourage other women to speak out. As she told Insider,
she has reclaimed her "One Tree Hill" trauma by maintaining friendships with
co-stars Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz, with whom she began the podcast "Drama Queens."
In 2005, Sophia Bush married her "One Tree Hill" co-star Chad Michael Murray. At the time,
she was just 22-years-old. But just one year later,
the couple called it quits, with an insider telling People,
"Sophia went into the marriage believing in the sanctity of marriage,
and Chad simply did not share that vision."
During an appearance on "Radio Andy," Bush confessed that she didn't actually
want to get married at such a young age. She also
revealed that she felt pressured into it by "One Tree Hill" execs, saying,
"What's the fight? 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?"
Murray later branded Bush's claims as "ludicrous" in a statement to Us Weekly.
The divorce was particularly difficult on Bush because "One Tree Hill" showrunners allegedly
exploited the couple's split for ratings and drama. She explained to "Armchair Expert,"
"They were really deeply inappropriate to both
of us about it. They ran like TV ads about it. [...] It was really ugly."
In 2011, the nation was rocked by the assassination attempt on congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords, when a gunman went on a shooting spree outside a supermarket in Tucson,
Arizona, per CNN. Although Giffords survived being shot in the head, six people were killed,
including Sophia Bush's 9-year-old cousin Christina-Taylor Green,
the youngest victim of the attack, per The New York Times. Green's father, John, told AZCentral,
"One day we were a beautiful family of four, and the next day, we woke up, and we had
three — with no real preparation, no warning, no nothing [...] It jars every part of your life."
Although Bush hadn't met her cousin, she was deeply affected by the loss,
revealing on "Chelsea Lately,"
"You've gotta take every day and you've gotta tell the people you love that you do."
After being remanded in custody, Green's killer, Jared Lee Loughner, chillingly smiled in court,
as well as for his mugshot, per ABC News. In 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Sophia Bush began a relationship with Google engineer Dan Fredinburg in 2013, with Us Weekly
reporting that they bonded over their shared interest in activism. After a year together,
the twosome split, but remained great friends, a source revealed to People. However, just one year
later, tragedy struck when Fredinburg was caught up in a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which triggered
an avalanche, while on an expedition to Mount Everest, per NBC News. Tragically, Fredinburg
died at the age of 33. Bush penned a heartbreaking tribute to her ex on Instagram, writing,
"Today I find myself attempting to pick up the pieces of my heart that
have broken into such tiny shards, I'll likely never find them all. Today I,
and so many of my loved ones, lost an incredible friend."
The "False Positive" star opened up about the loss in an interview with Health, saying,
"I felt like my heart was on the outside of my body
and everyone who came near me was stabbing me."
In addition to her ordeal on the set of "One Tree Hill," Sophia Bush was
allegedly subjected to bullying and physical assault when filming "Chicago P.D." In 2017,
Deadline reported that the show's star, Jason Beghe, was being investigated for misconduct
on set. He apologized for being aggressive, admitting that he has an anger problem. However,
on Instagram, Bush slammed Beghe for reducing his aggression to anger management issues,
branding his behavior "gross physical misconduct."
"You know what I think? I think it's a move to assert control over the situation."
The following year, Bush revealed that she struggled throughout the filming of "Chicago P.D."
Overworked, she was forced to film scenes outside in extreme cold weather conditions. Bush also
admitted that she felt guilty opening up about the abuse due to the various jobs that were at stake.
This was coupled with emotional manipulation from her bosses. As she explained on "Armchair Expert,"
"If your bosses tell you if you cause a ruckus you'll cost everyone their jobs,
you believe that [...] [It was] a consistent onslaught barrage of abusive behavior."
When she told her boss that she couldn't tolerate the abuse anymore,
she was warned that leaving wasn't an option, saying,
"Staying was like certain death [...] You start to lose your way when someone assaults
you in a room full of people and everyone literally looks away [...] and you're the
one woman in the room and every man who's twice your size doesn't do something."
Sophia Bush has made no secret of her love of dogs and has adopted a number
of pups from rescue shelters. In an interview with Fetch in 2015,
she enthusiastically talked about her dogs Penny and Patch, saying,
"No matter how many dogs you have in your life,
you have one that's a soul-mate dog, and for me, that's Patch."
Unfortunately, just one year later, Patch died at age 14. In a heartfelt Instagram post, Bush wrote,
"I said goodbye to my best friend yesterday [...] I watched this dog soothe people, heal people,
help people, and make people laugh, squeal, and grin with happiness. He was one in a million."
Sadly, the loss didn't end there. In 2019, Penny also died, at the age of 10. Bush revealed on
Instagram that Penny had been sick for some time. Nevertheless, she was unprepared for her
passing. The loss was made even more painful by the fact that Bush's other dog, Griffin,
struggled to cope without his mother, Penny, around. The "Chicago Med" star wrote on Instagram,
"Seeing him look for her in the house makes my heart catch in my throat."
A year after Penny's death, Bush adopted a dog called Maggie,
who hopefully provided Griffin with some much-needed companionship.
Unfortunately, Sophia Bush has been subjected to more than one unsettling interaction with a
fan attempting to invade her privacy. In 2022, Bush had to deal with the terrifying ordeal of
having an obsessed fan invade her personal space both online and in real life. As TMZ reported,
the fan developed an obsession with Bush, and reportedly started sending
her aggressive Instagram messages. They subsequently turned up at Bush's home,
where they left gifts and flowers, and were later arrested and charged with stalking.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time Bush had a run-in with a stalker. Back in 2014,
she divulged that a fan had begun posing as her on Twitter. The fan posted over 500 worrisome
tweets while pretending to be the "One Tree Hill" star, with Bush sharing dozens of screenshots of
messages the imposter sent to her fans. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Bush wrote,
"For the past few months I have been harassed to the point of sheer horror
by an online stalker. This person has taken to harassing and bullying many of my followers as
well [...] This has gotten beyond out of hand. Obsessive. Violent. And legally punishable."
According to Page Six, Bush swiftly contacted the police to deal with the matter.
Sophia Bush has been open about living with anxiety, telling Brit + Co,
"Confidence is a tricky word. I don't think that that's my natural state,
my natural state is to be a little anxious."
Having to deal with the advent of COVID-19 exacerbated these
issues for Bush. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Bush explained,
"The experience of stress and trauma [...] having friends hospitalized,
knowing people who have had family members die — it's a really intense experience."
The actor also noted that the demands of her job meant that she was frequently burnt
out from work, which only aggravated her personal turmoil. Additionally,
Bush has been frank when discussing her issues with self-esteem, telling Health,
"We are so conditioned as women to hate on
ourselves all the time [...] This is me, whether I like it or not."
"There will never be a point where you wake up and you're just like, 'Oh my god,
from today forward, I'm amazing forever."
Sophia Bush was close friends with her "Chicago P.D." co-star Markie Post, who played Bunny,
the mother of Bush's character Lindsay. On screen, Lindsay and Bunny had a toxic
relationship blighted by substance misuse and manipulation. But in real life, Bush and Post's
relationship couldn't have been any more disparate from that of their onscreen counterparts.
In 2021, Post died of cancer at the age of 70, per Deadline. Devastated by Post's death,
Bush penned a lengthy tribute to her co-star and friend,
detailing the ways in which she changed her life for the better, writing on Instagram,
"When I lived in a box that made it deeply difficult to be a woman [...] Markie came
in with arms to envelop me and eyes that fired both kindness and lightning storms
into the room as she held me, and likewise called other women into her safe space."