Ashlyn Harris and Sophia Bush. Antony Jones/Getty Images for Spotify
Sophia Bush opened up about one scene on One Tree Hill that didn’t sit right with her girlfriend, Ashlyn Harris.
On the Monday, August 26, episode of the “Drama Queens” podcast, cohosted by Bush, 42, Bethany Joy Lenz and Robert Buckley, Bush and her OTH costar Jana Kramer discussed season 7 episode 6 of the long-running CW series. While diving into the episode, the twosome touched on one particular disturbing scene where the character Milicent (Lisa Goldstein) begins taking diet pills after Alex (Kramer) tells her she is a plus-sized model.
“By the way, Ash and [my friend] Sammy watched with me yesterday and Ash goes, ‘Diet pills? Why?!’” Bush, who played Brooke Davis on the show from 2003 to 2012, recalled.
Kramer, 40, jumped in and asked, “Wait, so Ashlyn knows who I am?”
Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris’ friendship turned romantic on the heels of their respective divorces from Grant Hughes and Ali Krieger, and they’ve been quietly building their relationship. A source exclusively told Us Weekly Bush and Harris “bonded over their breakups and having to start over” in October 2023, one month after they began dating. […]
Bush replied, “She sure does!” before going back to how Harris, 38, reacted to the scene.
“Essentially what they’re saying, obviously it’s ridiculous, but this character is telling this character, ‘I’m the model and you’re the plus-sized model,’” Bush explained. “[Ashlyn] goes, ‘No!’ Screamed at the top of her lungs. And I’m like, ‘Well, welcome to Tree Hill. This is why everyone had a complex. You’re welcome.’”
Ashlyn Harris and Sophia Bush. Victor Boyko/Getty Images for LVMH x Vogue x NBC
Following Bush’s divorce from Grant Hughes in August 2023 and Harris’ divorce from Ali Krieger in September 2023, the twosome began seeing each other that October. While they were spotted together multiple times, Bush didn’t confirm their relationship had turned romantic until April — when she also came out as queer.
“It took me confronting a lot of things, what felt like countless sessions of therapy, and some prodding from loved ones, but eventually I asked Ashlyn to have a non-friend-group hang to talk about it,” Bush wrote in her Glamour cover story at the time. “And that meal was four and a half hours long and truly one of the most surreal experiences of my life thus far. In hindsight, maybe it all had to happen slowly and then suddenly all at once. Maybe it was all fated. Maybe it really is a version of invisible string theory.”
Bush went on to gush about Harris’ “relentless integrity” and how she “prioritizes and centers her kids” in her life. (Harris shares daughter Sloane, 3, and Ocean, 2, with Krieger, 40.)
“Falling in love with her has sutured some of my own childhood wounds, and made me so much closer to my own mother,” she explained. “Seeing Ashlyn choose to not simply survive, but thrive, for her babies has been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed a friend do. And now I get to love her. How lucky am I?”
