Sophia Bush details harrowing abuse on the set of huge US show that lasted years
'I had a workplace ongoing trauma revolving around an unending situation with someone old enough to be my father,' Bush said in Tuesday's episode of the Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky podcast.
The actress said the show was on her 'bucket list,' and while she didn't name the title, Bush confirmed that it was a series she signed onto after starring in One Tree Hill from 2003 to 2012.
Bush, 42, notably portrayed Erin Lindsay in Chicago P.D. from 2014 to 2017 — leaving after Season 4 due to its alleged toxic work environment.
When Lewinsky asked Bush, who has previously discussed being 'miserable' on the set, if she experienced something 'emotionally abusive' on set, Bush described it as 'every kind of abusive.'
'I did the thing I learned to do and said, 'I will not have my integrity diminished by someone else's behaviour. I will be unflappable. I will come to work and do my job.' And I couldn't,' she said.
Bush described the last two years on the show as a 'physical hell' before she ended her run on the series.
She allegedly suffered horrific symptoms from the stress of the situation, getting a 'spontaneous illness,' waking up 'covered in hives,' having 'really crazy weight fluctuation' and even losing her hair.'
Additionally, Bush couldn't sleep due to her 'crippling anxiety.'
'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,' Bush recalled. 'I couldn't talk to people anymore. I couldn't talk to strangers anymore. I couldn't be looked at anymore.'
Bush, comparing the trauma to a 'physical attack,' said she could no longer self-regulate and felt that her body was not her own.
'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.
Bush said she was 'finally' able to exit the police drama in April 2017 – just three months before the #MeToo movement rocked Hollywood.
'By October [2017], I got a call from an executive apologising for what they'd done and not done,' she claimed. 'And [they] said, 'We're very aware we just made it out of that unscathed.''
Bush continued, 'I was like, 'Glad you did, I'm in so much therapy. I've been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, but I'm thrilled you guys didn't get dragged through the press.''
The TV star admitted that it was a 'weird thing to deal with.'
While Bush initially left the show without giving a reason, she later admitted to 'drowning' on set of the NBC show in a December 2017 interview.
The following year she shared on The Armchair Expert podcast that she 'felt so ignored' during her stint on the series.
'I feel like I was standing butt naked, bruised and bleeding in the middle of Times Square, screaming at the top of my lungs and not a single person stopped to ask if they could help me,' she said at the time.
This story originally appeared on Page Six
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
41 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Brad Pitt's $2 million ‘green flex'
Brad Pitt isn't just portraying a Formula 1 driver in films — he's also a true car enthusiast in real life. The Hollywood star's collection features a roaring V12 Lamborghini, sleek electric Porsches, luxurious 4x4s and one of the world's rarest cars. His car collection itself is estimated to be worth approximately $6.3 million. Here's a look inside his extraordinary car collection. Lamborghini Aventador One of the most impressive vehicles in his collection is the Lamborghini Aventador, a V12-powered machine capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in approximately three seconds. It's unclear which specific version he owns, but with any Aventador, the screaming V-12 engine can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in around 3 seconds. Aston Martin Vanquish Carbon Edition Another head-turner in his collection is the Aston Martin Vanquish Carbon Edition, a 2015 model gifted to him by his ex-wife Angelina Jolie. Audi R8 Spyder There's also an Audi R8 Spyder, and it's pretty easy to see why Brad Pitt owns it. Packing over 600 horsepower and capable of speeds beyond 320 km/h, it's a fitting match for someone chasing the F1 thrill even off-set. Bentley Continental GT For a touch of British luxury, Pitt has a Bentley Continental GT. While he's rarely seen in it, the car is believed to be reserved for special events and award nights. Porsche Taycan Brad Pitt has been seen cruising around Hollywood in his 2023 Porsche Taycan. Depending on the model, the Taycan can have a dual-motor all-wheel drive that's capable of producing up to 751hp and can accelerate from 0 to 100 in 2.4 seconds. While it's unclear which Taycan Pitt owns, photos of him driving it around Los Angeles suggest it could be his new daily vehicle. Two Tesla Model S There's some bad history with one of his two Tesla Model S. In 2018, one of his two Teslas was involved in a three-car crash in Los Angeles. The Tesla Model S produces 670HP and has a top speed of around 320 km/h. It can also accelerate from 0 to 100 in just over three seconds. Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG Pitt is often seen driving his 2008 Mercedes G-Wagon. It's a black Mercedes-Benz G 55 AMG SUV that's fitted with a 5.5-litre supercharged V8 engine that can do 0-100 km/h in 5.5 seconds. Audi Q7 Brad Pitt has chosen the Audi Q7 as his go-to vehicle for picking up his kids and everyday tasks. It's a popular choice among many celebrities and can do 0-100 in 7.7 seconds with its 280hp engine. BMW Hydrogen 7 This could be Pitt's rarest car in his collection. The BMW Hydrogen 7 has a unique engine, allowing drivers to switch between hydrogen gas and petrol. These were built between 2005 and 2007 as part of BMW's exploration of hydrogen-powered vehicles, and only 100 were ever produced. The car has been described as a 'green flex' given it's astronomical price tag. It's said to be worth around $2m. He was last seen driving this car while attending the premiere of Ocean's 13. 'HIGHEST OF HIGHS' A month on from the release of his F1 film, Brad Pitt has opened up about his behind-the-scenes racing experience, sharing which legendary Formula One circuit left him 'breathless'. While reviews of the movie have been mixed, it's clear that Pitt received a front-row seat to one of the world's most prestigious motorsport events. While filming the F1 movie, he drove on various race tracks that comprise the Formula 1 calendar. And now Brad Pitt has opened up and shared his experience on which Formula 1 track left him feeling the 'highest of highs'. During a recent podcast interview with Tom Clarkson on Beyond The Grid, Pitt opened up about his new-found appreciation for the world's most iconic circuits like Silverstone and Abu Dhabi. However, there was one track that made him feel completely different from the rest. And that crown belongs to Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps, commonly referred to as Spa. 'But the high of highs? Spa. Oh my god! 4.3 miles, 100-metre elevation … It's such a smooth, graceful feeling,' Brad Pitt said. 'And then of course, Eau Rouge, we went to the bottom of Eau Rouge, turned behind, looked up the hill and waited. 'Fernando Alonso went by, and it literally sucks the air out of your lungs. It is unbelievable. It is unbelievable. 'That was that same weekend we were driving, I'd been out, but I wasn't doing what Fernando was doing!'
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
‘Lives have been detonated': Terrifying fact about Coldplay CEO
The memes, oh, the memes! In the week since Andy Byron, the married CEO of Astronomer, and the company's similarly married head of HR Kristin Cabot were caught embracing on camera at a Coldplay concert, the internet has responded by what it does best: Copying and pasting. Heads and TV characters and politicians. The meme output of Coldplaygate has been brilliant, prodigious, hilarious and the whole saga has been social media spawned, obsessively followed schadenfreude-laced soap. In short, the internet has been having a right good old time of it. But with the vast benefit of more than seven days of hindsight, Coldplaygate should scare the pants off all of us. Never before in history has one mistake, one moment, one stupid word or selfish deed or bad choice had the power to tear apart lives and to devastate peoples' worlds. To err is human – but for someone to film that erring and share it and have it so noxiously trend is decidedly 2025. Andy Warhol argued that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame; today that phrase sounds less like a promise and more like a chilling threat. What Coldplaygate lays bare is the danger of what happens when the very human impulse for shaming and a good old fashioned pile on is combined with the ubiquity of phones and the terrifying swiftness of the algorithm. Virality and internet fame are now so often not a shortcut to celebrity and cash, something to aspire to, but something to fear. What did Bryon and Cabot's lives and families look like at 6pm on Wednesday, July 16, the actual date of the concert? Very cookie-cutter, American dream-ish by all accounts. Spouses, kids, successful careers, impressive houses. Both were (and reportedly are) married and had big jobs at Astronomer, a billion-dollar AI company. Then, in the space of 12 hours, Byron and Cabot went from being anonymous professionals to having hit a degree of internet infamy I'm not sure we've ever seen before. That Wednesday night they attended a Coldplay gig at Boston's Gillette Stadium where the roving 'kiss cam' zeroed in on them as Byron held Cabot in his arms. Their immediate, instinctual reaction was called out by the band's frontman Chris Martin who told the roughly 55,000-strong crowd, 'Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy.' The kiss cam moment had been filmed by 28-year – old Coldplay fan Grace Springer, who later that night, about 1am Boston time, posted the moment on TikTok. The app's black box algorithm did its thing and within two hours the internet was reportedly already on the case and Byron and Cabot's identities were being ferreted out. By about 3am there was an uptick in Google searches for their names, Business Insider reports. Before Springer had gone to bed the video had 'a couple of thousand views,' she later said. 'I woke up to seven million.' Byron and Cabot's lives and their families' lives, had been detonated and the internet was hoovering it up, devouring the messiness, the stupidity, the ego. The video only spread and spread. By midday on Thursday, less than 12 hours after Springer had posted the clip, it had generated more than 30,000 posts on X, per Insider. A few hours later, by that afternoon, Byron had been Googled more than two million times. Within 48 hours he had resigned as Astronomer CEO and his wife Megan Kerrigan Byron, had removed 'Byron' from her surname on her Facebook account before deactivating the page. Cabot has also since resigned from Astronomer and was photographed this week without her wedding ring. The terminal velocity of this is breathtaking. When Cabot finished her working day on that Wednesday, the day the video was filmed, she was a seemingly normal 56-year-old; now Us Weekly, Page Six and the Daily Mail are doing background pieces about her. The New York Times, The (London) Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN have all reported on this story. On Friday the Mail published photos of her in her garden at home. Just think about that – two weeks ago she was nobody and now she has a paparazzo outside her house. The numbers around the Coldplay video are impossible to rationally compute. On Springer's original account alone, the clip has been viewed more than 127 million times. On the X accounts of leading Gen Z celebrity news sites Pop Craze and Pop Base, it has racked up more than 217 million views. The combined viewer count on these accounts alone – 344 million – equated to every man, woman and child in the United States and four million Canadians having watched Byron and Cabot canoodling. That is a nightmarish level of exposure. George Orwell warned about a dystopian, governmental Big Brother – he could never have predicted that we would be both the watchers and the watched. We are everyone else's big brothers. The degree of surveillance we now all live under, the fact that cameras are everywhere, means that mistakes and bad choices can devastate multiple lives in a way they never have before been able to. RIP privacy. Anywhere and everywhere. Someone is always watching. For a life to change in a moment, it used to take a bad diagnosis, being in the wrong place at a violent time, Mother Nature running her angry course. Now you just need to have someone pointing a phone in your direction at an inopportune moment. What has also become clear in recent days is that Coldplaygate says something about how, in 2025, internet shaming, as New York University professor and investor Scott Galloway has argued, has become a form of group entertainment. Some time around the 900s, the English took a break from getting the plague to invent the stocks. It was about ritualised, communal humiliation and shaming, a community being given permission to jeer and use up rotten spuds, a wrongdoer punished not physically but humiliating them. Coldplaygate is a replay of that, minus the mouldy, lobbable marrows. Who wins here? Byron and Cabot's spouses maybe but what a humiliating, gut punch of a way to learn about alleged infidelity. Even Grace Springer who filmed it and now has more than 51,000 followers (and 11 million likes) has not really tangibly benefited, telling British breakfast TV this week, 'I've actually made no money from the video itself or the views'. This week she added a link to her TikTok account for donations to pay off her reported $121,000 in student loans. She has not revealed if anyone has given her a $1.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
How Hulk Hogan weathered wrestling fame and racist scandal to become a right-wing mouthpiece
At the height of his career, Hulk Hogan was the bleach-blonde, suntanned, moustachioed face of professional wrestling. Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, donned his all-American persona to turn the spectacle into a multi-billion-dollar industry. By the time he died, he had taken this persona into the realm of conservative politics. A life of signature wrestling moves and catchphrases gave way to racist rants, lawsuits bankrolled by venture capitalists and shirt-tearing displays on the Republican campaign stage. US President Donald Trump mourned the loss of 'a great friend' on his Truth Social platform following the 71-year-old's death. "Strong, tough, smart, but with the biggest heart." Born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1953, Hogan aspired to wrestling glamour from an early age. His childhood hero was "American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, a star performer in the early days of professional wrestling. In his 2010 autobiography, Hogan described being "totally blown away" watching Rhodes live at 10 years old. "There was blood everywhere before the match even started," he wrote. "It was the wildest thing I'd ever seen." Later, Hogan went on to play in multiple rock bands, studying at the University of South Florida for a time before dropping out to pursue music. "There was something about being in a band and being onstage and having that interaction with the crowd," he wrote. "I thought about Dusty Rhodes and how he could pump up the crowd, and the bad guys yelling at the ref, and the boos and the ire they'd inspire. "And I knew I could do it. I just knew it. "I had spent so much time watching Dusty … that I had this vision of just stealing a little something from all the best wrestlers and rolling it all into one character." He took to wrestling under various names from mid-1977 onwards. In late 1979, Terry Bollea met with World Wrestling Foundation (WWF) owner Vince McMahon, who was keen to give him an Irish name. Hogan accepted the name change but declined to dye his hair red, and that November, "Hulk Hogan" made his WWF debut. Hogan soon became a household name, appearing on the cover of magazine Sports Illustrated and performing alongside pop culture stars like Mr. T. The WWF came to dominate wrestling, anchored by its annual WrestleMania pay-per-view events. Hogan was "larger than life", according to wrestling reporter Mike Johnson. "What he had at that time period was an incredible amount of innate charisma," he said. "He had the gift of the gab … He had glistening muscles. And there was just a great act that he had in terms of good versus evil." In an industry that thrived on delivering an engaging narrative and colourful characters to its gleeful audience, Hogan thrived. Early on, he appeared in the 1982 film Rocky III, then in a series of family movies and TV advertisements. "He was the great American hero in the United States, he was the ultimate good guy," Johnson said. "Especially during that time period around Hulk Hogan vanquishing the many villains like Rowdy Rowdy Piper and King Kong Bundy. "But it was Hogan, he was top of the pyramid, and everyone else was beneath him." But being top of the pyramid did not make Hogan an advocate for his fellow wrestlers. Professional wrestlers have long been regarded as independent contractors — meaning they largely are not able to access health benefits or unemployment compensation. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Hall of Famer and former Minnesota governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura has previously said he was threatened by WWE promoter and co-founder McMahon after pushing the cast to unionise. Ventura had given a speech in the locker room prior to a WrestleMania appearance — he never knew who had told organisers of his plans. Later, during legal proceedings, McMahon told a courtroom it was Hulk Hogan. "It was like someone punched me in the face," Ventura said later. "This was my friend. And I thought, 'Hogan betrayed me? Hogan called Vince and ratted me?' "Hogan made more money than all of us combined, including Andre [the Giant]. So naturally, he didn't want a union." Hogan would not admit to his involvement in union busting until a 2024 docuseries focused on McMahon's life. By this time, Hogan had been the face of WrestleMania 2 in 1986 — defending his heavyweight title against King Kong Bundy. The event earned an estimated $US5 million ($7.6 million), or $US14.7 million ($22.3 million) in today's currency. He had already been the event's main drawcard in 1985 and would go on to feature heavily for several years to come as it evolved into a large-scale, family-friendly attraction. His return to the WWF, after a brief stint with other franchises and appearances in film and TV, saw the dawn of "Hulkamania" in the 80s. His character in the ring changed accordingly — ditching the yellow tights, he became "Hollywood Hogan". Hogan was a deciding figure in what became known as the Monday Night Wars, when the WWF — now rebranded to World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE — and World Championship Wrestling battled for ratings supremacy. Over the following decade, Hogan returned to the ring at every opportunity. While he continued to play out fabricated feuds and complicated storylines in the wrestling arena, Hogan was plagued by a series of high-profile controversies. In 2012, celebrity blog Gawker published a two-minute excerpt of a 2006 sex tape featuring Hogan and a friend's wife. Hogan later filed a civil lawsuit against the website for $US100 million, stating he was unaware the encounter had been recorded. Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel would later admit to secretly bankrolling the lawsuit. Hogan was awarded $US140 million by a judge, and later reached a $US31 million settlement with Gawker Media. In 2015, a newspaper published an anti-black rant made by Hogan during the sex tape. In the recording, he expressed disgust at the idea of his daughter dating a black man and repeatedly used racial slurs. At one point in the transcript, he admitted to being "a racist, to a point" towards African Americans. In a statement to People magazine, Hogan apologised and said he was "disappointed" with himself. The WWE announced it had cancelled its contract with Hogan, and references to him disappeared from its website. Hogan's lawyer said Hogan had chosen to resign. Mattel stopped making his action figures. His merchandise was removed from shelves at Target, Walmart and at toy shops. More scandals followed. In the weeks following the initial recording being made public, it was revealed he had also used homophobic language on the tape. In another recording, this time speaking with his son in 2008, Hogan again repeatedly used racial slurs. He could be heard telling his son, who was serving an eight-month jail sentence at the time: "I just hope we don't come back as a couple, I don't want to say it, blizz-ack gizz-uys, you know what I'm saying?" In an interview with Good Morning America, Hogan blamed growing up in Florida for his use of racial slurs. Former neighbours of Hogan would later dispute this claim. One South Tampa woman, Linda Bryant, told media she had grown up with Hogan. "That was not the culture when Terry grew up here," she said. "Terry was the first guy to ever be a role model for this neighbourhood, and he had the kids wrapped around his finger. In 2018, he was reinstated into the WWE Hall of Fame. Hogan offered his name to everything from light beer to blenders to grills to a Minnesota pasta restaurant. He appeared in documentaries, announced online gambling and mobile games, and co-founded freestyle wrestling promotions. In 2005, he and his family became the focus of a reality TV series, Hogan Knows Best. The show, which focused on Hogan's efforts to raise his two children, was cancelled in 2007. According to the Wrestling Figure Checklist, there have been more than 170 different Hulk Hogan action figures since the 80s. In January 2025, Hogan was booed at the premiere of Netflix's latest WWE show. By then, he had become known to a new generation for a different reason — lending his celebrity status to endorsing Trump. At the 2024 Republican National Convention, he merged classic WWE manoeuvres with Trump administration rhetoric. "Let Trumpamania run wild brother! Let Trumpamania rule again! Let Trumpamania make America great again!" he shouted into the raucous crowd. He ripped off a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of himself on a motorcycle to reveal a bright red Trump-Vance campaign shirt underneath. Trump had twice hosted WrestleMania — and following his election win, he chose former chief executive Linda McMahon to serve as his secretary of education. Hogan said he made the decision to support the Republican candidate after seeing his combative, fist-pumping reaction to an attempted assassination on the campaign trail. That January appearance, his thank you message to fans, drowned out by a booing crowd, would prove to be his last professional wrestling event. Emergency services were called to Hogan's Florida home on Thursday, local time, after he suffered a cardiac arrest. He was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 71 years old. Some fans told Reuters it was like losing someone who had "been around forever". "I mean, he's what I grew up watching," Iowa resident Andrew Hegewald said. "My grandpa introduced me to professional wrestling when I was young, and then he switched over to WCW and you had the dark Hulk Hogan. "Such an icon. Such a loss for the sport." Others, including Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and TV personality Piers Morgan, also paid tribute to the wrestler. "From my childhood in the 80s, to campaigning with him last year, I always saw him as a giant in stature and in life," Johnson wrote. "May he rest in peace." ABC/AP/Reuters
