On Ashley Graham’s podcast, Pretty Big Deal , former Chicago PD and One Tree Hill star, Sophia Bush, revealed that she argued with the writers of One Tree Hill over shooting “inappropriate scenes” while playing a 16-year-old.
The latest guest on Ashley Graham’s podcast, “Pretty Big Deal”, Sophia Bush, revealed some pretty disturbing stuff about her time on “One Tree Hill”.
Playing a 16-year-old girl on the show, she wasn’t afraid to speak up to her boss about filming “inappropriate scenes”.
In the beloved teen-drama series, Sophia played the role of Brooke Davis; popular high school cheerleader and fashionista.
When the show began, she was playing a 16-year-old, but at the time she was actually in her early 20s.
Speaking with Ashley, she recalled butting heads with the writers and producers about scenes that she found inappropriate for teens.
“I fought a lot with the writers…,” she said .
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I was sort of unaware of the power dynamics at play and I would just say things. I’d be like, ‘I’m not doing this.'”
One Tree Hill fans probably recall that Brooke was painted as rather promiscuous and fearless in her younger years, and according to Sophia, the producers tried to shoot even more risqué scenes that she ultimately refused to do.
There was this sort of really weird thing… you look back at it, at the time I didn’t realize how inappropriate it was, but again, this is a long time ago,” she said.
“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, and to be seeking validation this way.’”
She then recalled her boss’ reaction to her protest — which in most cases, would probably classify as workplace sexual harassment.
Her “boss” responded by telling her, “‘Well you’re not 16.’”
“And I said , ‘But I’m playing 16, and if you want somebody to do it so badly, get somebody else to do it.”
“And he literally said to me, ‘Well you’re the one with the big [expletive] rack everybody wants to see.’ And I was like, ‘What?! Well, I’m not doing it!’”
Good for her for standing her ground!
In retaliation to her boss’ earlier comment, Sophia showed up the next day wearing an extra modest turtleneck out of spite.
“Just sort of to be spiteful,” she explained .
“I was like, ‘This is just how I’m gonna dress on the show from now on if you don’t stop writing these scenes.'”
“I was really ballsy and I didn’t even know it,” she added.
“I just wasn’t wanting to perpetuate this sort of behavior that I didn’t think was appropriate.”
Interestingly, Sophia’s boss at the time — the creator of One Tree Hill , Mark Schwan, went on to have a legitimate track record of sexual misconduct.
He made headlines in 2017 after being fired from his next series, “The Royals”.
There were multiple allegations of sexual misconduct from the female cast members of One Tree Hill , one of whom was Sophia.
In November 2017, Sophia and her OTH co-stars, Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz, wrote an open letter about about Mark’s alleged behavior.
“Many of us were, to varying degrees, manipulated psychologically and emotionally,” the letter reads.
“More than one of us is still in treatment for post-traumatic stress.”
“Many of us were put in uncomfortable positions and had to swiftly learn to fight back, sometimes physically, because it was made clear to us that the supervisors in the room were not the protectors they were supposed to be.”
“Many of us were spoken to in ways that ran the spectrum from deeply upsetting, to traumatizing, to downright illegal.”
“And a few of us were put in positions where we felt physically unsafe. More than one woman on our show had her career trajectory threatened,” the letter concludes .