One Tree Hill actresses Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton reveal in a podcast that they were forced to take part in a nude photo shoot during their time on the popular series. “It was not a safe place for me,” Bush says of the recordings according to Metro.
In the latest episode of his own podcast, Drama QueensOne Tree Hill actresses Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton — who played Brooke Davis and Peyton Sawyer on the show — say the show’s executives forced them to take part in a scantily clad photoshoot for the magazine Maxim 2006.
“It was not a safe place”
“I was literally told that if you don’t do this cover with the other actors, we guarantee you will never go to a press day, a movie, an event, any of your charities. We will keep you here forever,” Bush says in the podcast, according to British Metro.
She continues:
“I said, ‘no I don’t want to do this’, and I was told I had to. It was such a powerful threat and a threat to be able to—honestly, to even have the possibility of getting away for a weekend. That season I was away as much as I could /…/ I wanted to go home, I wanted to be with my family. I wanted to be with my friends. And I didn’t want to not be on the set, it wasn’t a safe place for me.”
Got fired from TV series
Burton, for his part, says the executives claimed the TV series was in danger of being canceled if they didn’t participate in the shoot.
“I remember being pulled into the production office and sitting on the floor while our manager sat on a couch. We were told that ‘all the other TV series have been on the front of every newspaper and nobody wants you. No one wants you and now finally someone wants you and you want to say no?'”, she says, adding that the message was that all her friends would lose their jobs if she said no.
In 2017, the creator of the television series, Mark Schwahn, was accused of sexual harassment in an open letter signed by several actors and employees from both One Tree Hill and another TV series, The Royals. He was later fired from The Royals.
