One Tree Hill stars Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush claim they were pressuredinto doing their 2006 Maxim magazine photo shoot. Burton, Bush and co-starBethany Joy Lenz revealed what went on behind the scenes years ago whilerecapping an old OTH episode on them Drama Queens __ podcast. Lenz claimedshe was left out of the Maxim cover spread as she was deemed to be “toofat.”
The actresses began by explaining how the Maxim storyline was written intothe fourth season as the network wanted to attract more male viewers.
“I was specifically pulled aside and told that our male numbers in viewershipskyrocketed when [my character] Peyton got her ass kicked by Derek. So whatyou’ll see, there’s a pattern on our show, where, either violence towardswomen or super sexualized situations, there’s gonna be an uptick in thatbecause they were really hot to capture the male audience,” Burton claimed.”That was really frightening to me, but I had to be a good sport about it …They were trying to get the dudes for sure. They couldn’t do it withbasketball, so we’ll punch a girl in the face.”
Bush added, ”I know they weren’t trying to solicit basement bullies on theinternet, but they saw that a lot of young men were drawn to a violent assaultof women and they went, ‘We should do more of that.’ Not, ‘Uh-oh.’ They werelike, ‘Maybe we should do more! Maybe we should make the girls do Maxim andtell them they’ll get fired if they don’t!'”
In the show, Bush’s character, Brooke, takes photos of Rachel (played byDanneel Ackles) for Maxim ‘s “Hometown Hotties” issue. The episode aired inOctober 2006, one month before Bush, Burton and Ackles appeared on the cover.
“We really did try to make it the best version of it we could, but ya, we gottold we had to do it,” Bush declared.
“Because Brooke had been so sexualized on the show, and the whole idea ofthis ‘Hometown Hottie’ was Rachel’s storyline, I was like, ‘Look, if thegirls want to do it, that’s great. I don’t. I have gone to battle trying tomake Brooke less of this thing that you guys tried to force me into. I don’twant to do it,'” Bush continued. “I literally got told, ‘If you do not go andshoot this cover with your co-stars, we will guarantee you that you will neverbe let out for a press day, a movie, an event, any of your charities. We willkeep you here forever.'”
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Burton remembered getting pulled into a production office when she was given a”soft pitch” by higher-ups: “Look, all the other shows have been on the coverof every single magazine and no one wants you guys. No one wants you. And youfinally have someone that wants you and you’re really gonna turn your nose upat that?”
“It was very much a, ‘No one else wants you, the studio wants to cancel yourshow, if you don’t start to generate some buzz and attract these male numbers,we’re dead and all your friends are going to lose their jobs,'” Burton added.
Bush said she pushed back as she didn’t want to do the shoot, but “was told Ihad to.”
“It was such a profound threat and a threat to being able to — honestly, evento have the ability to escape for a weekend, a place that at this stage, thisseason, I was leaving every chance I got. I would come into work and do my joband I wanted out,” Bush shared. “I wanted to go home, I wanted to be with myfamily. I wanted to be with my friends. I did not want to be on our set, itwas not a safe place for me. This was such a threat to safety. “
Burton, Bush and Lenz accused OTH creator Mark Schwahn of sexual harassmentin 2017. Burton and Bush claimed on Sunday’s podcast that Schwahn showed up onset of the Maxim shoot and made them feel “uncomfortable”
“We were all pitted against each other and here’s a great example,” Lenz said,revealing she was told her co-stars were shooting Maxim and had “replaced”her with Ackles.
“They told me that they didn’t come to me because I was too fat and I justwasn’t a hot girl on the show anymore,” Lenz recalled.
Burton and Bush were shocked to hear their friend’s version of the events.
“They go, ‘Well she said no, so you have to say yes. She said no first,'” Bushclaimed. “They scapegoated you to tell the three of us we couldn’t say no… Weweren’t mad at you but we were pissed about it.”
Lenz insinuated Schwahn was upset when she got married in 2005. She laterremembered getting a script in which her character, Haley, was called “a fatgirl with a little head.”
“I remember reading that on paper and just being like, ‘What? It’s so random.That actually must be what he thinks of me,'” Lenz explained. “Sometimessomeone will say something to you and you’re like, ‘I never, ever saw myselfthat way.’ Now suddenly, every time I look in the mirror, I’m like, ‘Am I fat?I guess I do have a little head? Is that bad? Is that unattractive?’ It’s sodumb, but it really followed me around for a long time in my brain”
Lenz added, “From that point forward, I started getting treated like, ‘Justput Joy in the category of middle-age mom. We’re gonna do the sexy stuff witheverybody else. There’s nothing interesting about Joy anymore because she’smarried’ and apparently, they thought I was fat and boring. That was it. Ijust got kind of replaced with Danneel, who I love … It was just so weird.”