‘Chicago P.D.’ Alum Sophia Bush Reveals What It Was Like Returning to ‘One Tree Hill’ After Split From Chad Michael Murray

Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray were both core cast members on the teen drama One Tree Hill, which ran from 2003-2012, but the two also had a tumultuous personal relationship behind the scenes.

Bush and Murray married in 2005 and divorced in 2006, and Bush got candid about their relationship on an episode of Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, revealing what it was like returning to the show after ending things with Murray.

“They ran like TV ads about it, it was really ugly,” she recalled. “They made practice of taking advantage of people’s personal lives, and not just for me and for my ex, for other actors on the show who would share as you do when you get close to people. Deeply personal things that were happening in their lives and they would wind up in storylines. It wasn’t OK.”

While Murray is never mentioned by name in the episode, Bush shared that she feels the One Tree Hill producers acted in “really deeply inappropriate” ways towards the pair.

“It was opportunistic and ugly,” she said. “When you run a show, you’re like a parent, you’re supposed to protect your flock, and it was the opposite of that. And I imagine that was hard for him as well, you know? It was a very ugly situation on their part. I think they kind of lived for the drama.”

The actress further explained that she rarely talks about her relationship with Murray due to her age at the time.

“The reason why I don’t talk about it, A. is because everyone’s been 21 and stupid, but if you’re in our job, for some reason, people wanna talk to you about like, when you’re fully-fledged adults who’ve done really amazing s— with your lives, they wanna talk to you about the dumb thing you did in college basically,” she said. “Which doesn’t make sense to me, ’cause like, in any other realm, if a CEO is having a meeting, no one’s gonna ask about the time they went to a kegger in college.”

Bush previously spoke about her marriage to Murray on Andy Cohen’s Radio Andy in June.

“It was not a thing I actually really wanted to do, but you know, it’s cool,” she said. “Ladies have to learn how to take up space in the way that men are taught they are entitled to.”

“Why do I wanna talk about this anymore?” Bush added. “It’s like, and I get why you ask, but it’s like, people won’t let it go.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Emma McIntyre