Every diehard One Tree Hill fan remembers when three of the CW drama’s stars appeared on the duvet of Maxim in 2006, however as revealed in a brand new episode of the present’s iHeartRadio rewatch podcast, it’s a second that the actresses concerned would a lot fairly overlook.
Sophia Bush, Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz element the cases of misogyny and abuses of energy surrounding that cowl shoot within the Nov. 28 episode of Drama Queens. The shoot, which featured Bush, Burton and Danneel Ackles, was loosely tied right into a Season 4 storyline through which Rachel (performed by Ackles) lands the duvet of Maxim‘s “Hometown Hotties” challenge.
According to Bush and Burton, participation within the shoot was not non-obligatory.
“We got told we had to do it,” Bush says. “Because [my character] Brooke had been so sexualized on the show and the whole idea of this ‘Hometown Hottie’ was Rachel’s storyline, I was like, ‘If the girls want to do it, that’s great. I don’t. I have gone to battle trying to make Brooke less of this thing that you guys have tried to force me into. I don’t want to do it.’ I literally got told: ‘If you don’t go and shoot this cover with your costars, we will guarantee 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.’”
Burton additionally remembers being coerced into doing the shoot. “I remember getting pulled into the production office and [sitting] on the floor while our boss was on the couch,” she says. “We were given this very friendly soft pitch: ‘Look, all the other shows have been on the cover of every single magazine, and no one wants you guys. You finally have someone who wants you, and you’re really going to turn your nose up at that?’”
Lenz, who didn’t participate within the shoot, then provides essentially the most horrific element but: she remembers listening to that Bush and Burton had been in Los Angeles for a photograph shoot, and that she’d been “replaced” by Ackles.
“They told me that [Maxim] didn’t come to me because I was too fat, and I just wasn’t the ‘hot girl,’” Lenz says, who provides that damaging references to her character’s look had been additionally inserted into the scripts round this similar time.
This was information to Bush and Burton, each of whom bear in mind being instructed that Lenz turned down the chance. As Bush remembers, “When I said I didn’t want to do it, they said, ‘She said no, so you have to say yes.’” Bush tells Lenz, “They threw you under the f–ing bus. Like, why does she get to say no and I don’t? I didn’t understand. … We weren’t mad at you, but we were pissed about it.”
“We tried our hardest,” Bush says of the particular shoot. “We got cute vintage one pieces and high-waisted bikinis, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll wear this corset top that totally covers my tummy, and these shorts, and it’ll look like a ’50s pin-up shoot.’ And then the Photoshop they did of that outfit? Half of my ass is gone. Literally one of my legs is half of its size. … It’s like someone started to make one of my boobs bigger, then went to lunch and forgot they weren’t done. I have one normal-sized boob and one huge boob. It’s the worst.”
The actresses additionally recall their unnamed “boss” visiting the shoot with a present for Burton. “It was an iPod that he had loaded with music he thought was applicable to me,” Burton says. “He wanted Sophia to see it to put her in her place, and he wanted Danielle to see it to try and make her jealous. Who does that with a pack of 24-year-olds?”
“A married adult man 20 years your senior,” Bush says, including that it was “scary and uncomfortable” to observe him hand Burton this iPod. “I could see you collapse a little bit,” Bush says, to which Burton replies, “I was so f–ing embarrassed.”
It was the sort of habits, Bush says, that made the One Tree Hill set “not a safe place” for her. “This season, I was leaving every chance I got,” she says. “I wanted out. I wanted to go home.”
But if there have to be a silver lining to this expertise, let it’s the white denims of empowerment that Burton possesses to this very day. Allow her to clarify:
“Guess who wore pants in Maxim? This guy!” Burton says. “Guys, I have kept this pair of white jeans for so long. I showed up that day and was such a righteous bitch. Such a brat, such a baby. I was like, ‘I’m wearing pants. I’m uncomfortable. Put me in the pants.’ So I’ve saved those white jeans as a testament to [that decision].”
This is the newest in a collection of disturbing behind-the-scenes tales shared on Drama Queens. The podcast nonetheless celebrates what followers beloved about One Tree Hill, however its hosts are additionally extremely candid about their damaging experiences on set, the hostile nature of which wasn’t totally revealed till years after the present’s 2012 conclusion. In 2017, Bush, Burton and Lenz joined 15 different One Tree Hill feminine forged and crew members in releasing a joint assertion accusing collection creator Mark Schwahn of sexual harassment.
New episodes of Drama Queens are launched each Monday on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and different platforms.
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