NEED TO KNOW
-
Sophia Bush is speaking candidly about a toxic work environment on the set of a TV show where she was allegedly physically and emotionally abused
-
She said on the Tuesday, June 3, episode of Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky that the situation happened with “someone old enough to be my father”
-
” I had to go to work ready for war,” she alleged
Sophia Bush is speaking out about a toxic work environment and the alleged trauma she endured as a result.
On the Tuesday, June 3, episode of Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky, Bush, 42, recalled joining a television series after her nine-year run on the teen drama One Tree Hill, which wrapped in 2012.
While she didn’t directly name the TV show, she shared that it was on her “bucket list.” However, she suffered “every kind” of abuse on the set, with “someone old enough to be [her] father.”
“When I look back at it, I had the opportunity after two years to go,” Bush explained. “I did the thing I learned to do and said, ‘I will not have my integrity diminished by someone else’s behavior. I will be unflappable. I will come to work and do my job.’ And I couldn’t.”
She recalled waking up in “physical hell,” having a “spontaneous illness” and being “covered in hives.” Bush said during this time, her weight also fluctuated and she experienced hair loss.
Matt Dinerstein/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty
sophia bush
“As an extrovert who loves people, to be hit with anxiety in such a way that I could barely be out of the house; if people touched me in public, I would jump out of my skin,” she recalled. “I couldn’t talk to people anymore. I couldn’t talk to strangers anymore. I couldn’t be looked at anymore, especially in the work environment.”
Bush said she found herself becoming defensive while working on the series, something she’d never experienced before. “Because I had to go to work ready for war all the time, I had to learn where to stand to not get elbowed in the ribs or how to block a scene to not be touched. It was just exhausting,” she claimed.
The actress said she wasn’t able to exit the show until April 2017, a few months before the #MeToo movement began. “By October [2017], I got a call from an executive apologizing for what they’d done and not done,” she said. “And [they] said, ‘We’re very aware we just made it out of that unscathed.’ ”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Matt Dinerstein/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty
sophia bush
While Bush didn’t directly name the show she spoke of, from 2014 to 2017 she played Erin Lindsay on the NBC police drama, Chicago P.D.
She opened up about her departure from the series in December 2017, telling Refinery 29’s Unstyled podcast that she was given two options: change her environment or have her character written off. “It was then that I realized I’d been drowning. It was then that I knew just how miserable I was going to work every day,” Bush recalled at the time. “I had to respect myself in a situation where I didn’t feel respected.”
PEOPLE reached out to Bush’s rep for comment and didn’t immediately hear back.
If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
Read the original article on People
