Sophia Bush Gets Real About Brooke and Lucas Dating Amid CMM Divorce

The Brucas vs. Leyton debate among One Tree Hill fans may never end — but how does Sophia Bush really feel about her onscreen persona, Brooke Davis, reuniting with Lucas Scott amid her and Chad Michael Murray’s real-life divorce?

After dating during season 1 of the teen drama, Brooke and Lucas spent the majority of season 2 apart, with Murray’s character confessing his feelings for Brooke in the May 2005 finale. One month before the episode aired, Bush and Murray had wed on April 16, 2005, after meeting on the set of season 1.

Just five months later, they announced their separation — just as Brooke and Lucas finally got back together during season 3.

While covering season 3, episode 9 — “How a Resurrection Really Feels” — which aired in December 2005, on their “Drama Queens” podcast in July 2022, Bethany Joy Lenz praised Bush for her performance.

“Not for nothing, you were going through a breakup with the person that you were playing a romance opposite of. And regardless of what all those circumstances were, that’s incredibly difficult — emotionally to be able to be vulnerable and be there in that moment,” Lenz told Bush and Hilarie Burton. “There’s lots of actors who have done that — who’ve done movies and TV shows and things, they date their costar or whatever, it doesn’t work out. But the fact that you were able to just be that raw and open and vulnerable, it’s a real credit to you as an artist. You put your art in front of everybody and just were like, ‘Look, this is it. I’m just sharing my heart and here we are.’ I thought it was really beautiful.”

The Chicago P.D. alum made it clear that she was never going to let any personal drama get in the way of the show.

“People can call it whatever they want. They can say it’s strength, they can say it’s pride, they can say its professionalism — you can put a positive or a negative skew on it,” she responded to her former castmates. “But I was always going to put Brooke Davis ahead of everybody and everything else. Nothing mattered to me but being honest for her.”

Bush went on to acknowledge why fans may have liked the Brooke and Lucas pairing. “As teenagers, they got to be silly and our show needed a little bit of, like, silliness and discovery. It couldn’t all be, like, marriage and death,” the actress said.

Brooke and Lucas split before season 3 ended, but Bush and Murray remained on One Tree Hill together for three more seasons. The A Cinderella Story actor, who wed Sarah Roemer in 2015, left the CW show after season 6 in 2009, while Bush, who married Grant Hughes in June 2022, remained a series regular until the 2012 finale.

Scroll through for more from Bush on Murray: