Hilarie Burton Morgan, Sophia Bush Allege ‘One Tree Hill’ Showrunner Told Them to do ‘Maxim’ Shoot or “Lose Their Jobs”

In Monday’s episode of the Drama Queens podcast, Hilarie Burton Morgan, Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz discussed being pressured into things they weren’t comfortable doing during their time on One Tree Hill.

During the trio’s podcast, the women talk about the season four episode of the popular CW series that ran from 2003-2012, where Brooke (Bush) takes Rachel’s (Danneel Ackles) photos for Maxim magazine. Just after the episode aired in October 2006, Bush, Morgan, and Ackles were on the cover of Maxim in November 2006. But Bush and Morgan said that they didn’t want to do it. During this time, the two One Tree Hill stars say the show was wanting to attract a larger male audience to increase viewers.

“They were fixated on the male thing,” Morgan says. “I was specifically pulled aside and told that our male numbers in viewership skyrocketed when Peyton [Morgan] got her ass kicked by Derek [Matt Barr]. And so what you’ll see, there’s a pattern on our show, where either violence towards women or super sexualized situations, there’s going to be an uptick in that, because they were really hot to capture the male audience and they saw those numbers.”  

As male viewership became a focus, Morgan and Bush claim it was also a driving factor in deciding what they had to participate in for the show, like the Maxim cover shoot.  

“We got told we had to do it. Because Brooke had been so sexualized on the show and the whole idea of this hometown hottie was Rachel’s storyline. I was like, ‘Look, if the girls want to do it, that’s great. I don’t. … And I literally got told, ‘If you do not go and shoot this cover with your co-stars, we will guarantee you that you will never be let out for a press day, a movie, an event, any of your charities. We will keep you here forever,” Bush explains. 

Morgan alleged she was told, “The studio wants to cancel your show. If you don’t start to generate some buzz and attract these male numbers, then we’re dead and all your friends are going to lose their jobs.”  

Throughout the series, the trio says they were constantly being put up against each other. Also during Monday’s podcast, Lenz said she was told she couldn’t do the cover because she was “too fat.” That was news to Morgan and Bush, who claim they were told Lenz turned it down. 

These new details surrounding the series come after the cast and crew of One Tree Hill accused show creator Mark Schwahn of sexual harassment in 2017, five years after the show wrapped. At the time, writer Audrey Wauchope tweeted that she and her writing partner were sexually harassed while working on the series, including inappropriate touching and comments, and accused the showrunner, but did not directly name him, of showing naked photos of an actress he was in a relationship with to crew members. Cast members, including Burton, Bush and Lenz backed up Wauchope’s claims in a joint statement, alleging Schwahn manipulated many of them “psychologically and emotionally.” 

Schwahn has not publicly addressed the allegations made in 2017. The Hollywood Reporter was unable to reach Schwahn about the Drama Queens podcast comments and has reached out to The CW for comment.