Sophia Bush is telling it like it is.
The 40-year-old actress has been open about her upsetting experiences on the set of One Tree Hill and Chicago PD. She starred as Brooke Davis on One Tree Hill for all nine seasons of the series. Later on in her career, she starred as Erin Lindsay on Chicago PD for the first four seasons of the show, leaving at the end of season four.
She has spoken out about the alleged misconduct that she dealt with on both shows. But now, Sophia has revealed that she was actually asked to choose between speaking out about her experience on One Tree Hill or Chicago PD.
In a new episode of her Drama Queens podcast which she co-hosts with fellow One Tree Hill stars Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz, Sophia discussed what happened.
She shared that she was told to pick which one to speak out about:
“When #MeToo was breaking that October, a story was coming out about my coworker in Chicago and executives managed to get that story killed. My rep said to me, ‘You’re going to have to pick. You can either tell the story about your first boss or you can tell the story about your coworker but you can’t tell both because then it looks like it’s your fault.’ That was professional advice.”
Hilarie tearfully responded:
“You picked us.”
Sophia, Hilary, and Joy have all been very vocal about the horrible things they had to go through on One Tree Hill. In the podcast, Sophia replied to Hilarie’s experience on OTH, comparing it to her own experience on Chicago PD:
“What you experienced that night, the way you got yelled at, that’s exactly the shit I was dealing with in Chicago and also had a group of men who were like, ‘I love you so much, you’re our best friend.’ [They] never got involved and never stood up.
And I know some of them are mad that I acknowledge that when we talk about this show as well, and you know what? I don’t care. That fear that I’m going to keep talking about it better be what makes you behave better on every set you’re on. From the time that you left North Carolina, the time I left Illinois, they better behave better. They better be a little afraid.”
Sophia went on to explain why she will keep on speaking up, stating:
“When people on that other job say, ‘Why won’t you stop talking about it?’ or ‘Why do you need to bring it up?’ I’m like, ‘You have no idea what I withheld that’s benefitted you. And in the same way we all feel about our boss on this show, the way I feel about the predator on that other show is I’m not going to be able to take this chip off my shoulder until you face some f–king accountability. You got to do this thing, you got to scar all these women, you got to hurt all these people. You’ve left a body count in your wake of people who have to go to therapy and do all of this gnarly work — and we didn’t ask for that.”
She also talked about how the abuse was covered up back then:
“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do until there is more accountability. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do that our boss was allowed to never make a comment. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do that my next employers rebranded sexual assault with witnesses as ‘anger management issues’ in the press.”
