Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton on Why They Continue Talking About Alleged Assaults
Sophia Bush and Hilarie Burton on Why They Continue Talking About Alleged Assaults on ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Chicago P.D.’: ‘Face Some F-ing Accountability’ https://t.co/TUJCJmfRsI
- Variety (@Variety) April 18, 2023
Bush, Burton and Lenz were joined by Danneel Ackles to recap the Season 4 finale of OTH.
The discussion turned into a much more emotional one that explained why they keep speaking out about the behavior of creator Mark Schwahn and what they experienced on later jobs.
Schwahn told everyone Burton was doing cocaine while filming the episode, (she was taking caffeine pills to make it through the night shoots). Ackles and Burton also alleged that he then called their next employers to say they were problematic.
Burton and Bush got emotional, recalling Schwahn “very aggressively” rubbing their backs while filming,
It led to Burton snapping at him and telling him to stop touching the girls on set.
Later that night, he called her into his office and screamed at her.
Burton said that the show “was never good again” for her.
She is scared that Schwahn is landing ghostwriting gigs because he was “never held accountable” and because other producers never spoke out and said they wouldn’t hire him.
Bush also detailed some of her own experiences on “Chicago P.D.”
""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.".
"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,”
“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 fucking accountability. You got to do this thing, you got to scare 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.”
“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.”
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