‘One Tree Hill’ Storylines That Were Inspired by the Actors’ Real Lives
Molly McGuigan
·12 min read
Hilarie Burton, Bethany Joy Lenz, and Sophia Bush.Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
For the cast of One Tree Hill, the line between fact and fiction was often blurred. The show’s stars claim that events from their real lives — from their personal interests to their traumas — would find their way into their characters’ storylines.
“[The producers] made practice of taking advantage of people’s personal lives,” Sophia Bush, who played Brooke Davis on the CW show, told Dax Shepard on a December 2018 episode of his “Armchair Expert” podcast. “Not just for me and my ex [Chad Michael Murray], but for other actors on the show who would share, as you do when you get close to people, deeply personal things that were happening in their lives and they would wind up in storylines.”
Bush continued: “It wasn’t okay. It was opportunistic and ugly and when you run a show, you’re like a parent, you’re supposed to protect your flock, and it was the opposite of that. … I think they kind of lived for the drama.”
Bush and the other women of One Tree Hill have previously spoken out about misconduct behind the scenes of the beloved teen drama — including harassment allegations against creator Mark Schawhn. Along with her costars Hilarie Burton Morgan, Bethany Joy Lenz and many more, Bush penned a letter detailing Schwahn’s misconduct in 2017.
The three female leads often refer to behind-the-scenes misconduct on their “Drama Queens” podcast (on which they avoid using his name), including use of their personal lives for drama on the show without their consent. They have recalled opening up scripts to find their experiences used in storylines, much to their surprise and often discomfort.
Keep scrolling for a breakdown of One Tree Hill storylines that were mined from the actors’ real lives — for better or for worse:
Courtesy of Chad Michael Murray/Instagram; The CW
Lucas’ Tattoo
In the ninth episode of season 1, “With Arms Outstretched,” Lucas Scott (Murray) gets drunk with Brooke Davis, and he decides to get a tattoo to match hers. While he intends to get the Chinese character for “fun” inked on his arm, he accidentally receives the character for “have.”
What felt like a very random storyline for viewers actually held an important real-life function: covering up Murray’s real tattoo. He has his initials “CMM” inked on his right shoulder.
“The entire thing happened as a vehicle for them to put that tattoo on Chad’s arm for Lucas because Chad has a real tattoo on his shoulder and they were having such a hard time covering it up,” Bush revealed in an August 2021 episode of “Drama Queens.”
Burton Morgan added: “[His tattoo] is raised, so they were having so much trouble covering it with flesh tone that they needed an excuse to put a bandage over his arm for basketball.”
Fans who follow the sacred practice of scouring IMDb for their favorite actors’ names after binge-watching a show may have come to the realization that the characters Bevin and Antwon are actually played by actors named Bevin and Antwon.
Antwon Tanner played Antwon “Skills” Taylor on the show, while Bevin Prince played Bevin Mirskey. While it’s fun to think the characters’ names are fun Easter eggs, Prince — who started as an extra on the show — revealed that her character’s name was actually just an accident.
“So often when we needed something, it would be like, ‘Well, why don’t we have Bevin say this?’” Bush said on a December 2021 episode of “Drama Queens.” “And because no one knew how long the show was going to be on and where things were going to go, I think for the script supervisor and the ADs, in their head, they were like, ‘OK great,’ so they just called you all by your names. And then one day, someone said, ‘Bevin!’ in an episode, and then I remember four episodes later everyone went, ‘Ah, s—t, we’ve actually named you your name. Sorry!’”
Prince chimed in to reveal the culprit: “It was Hilarie!” she said. “So they were like, ‘I guess we’ve got to just keep it.’”
Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images
Haley’s Music
While Haley James Scott’s (Lenz) musical talents became an integral aspect of her character, Lenz wasn’t cast on One Tree Hill based on her vocal abilities. In fact, Schwahn created Haley’s musical storyline after overhearing Lenz singing on set during the first season.
“She was standing in the corner of the set singing, in a parking garage with really good acoustics,” Schwahn told Associated Press at the time. “She has an incredible voice, one of those voices that you hear and you think that person should be on Broadway. Why’s she wasting her time acting?”
In addition to including several songs she sings on the soundtracks, Warner Bros. even sent Lenz on a real-life 23-city concert tour with Tyler Hilton (who played Chris Keller), guest stars The Wreckers and theme song crooner Gavin DeGraw, mirroring the tour Haley embarks on in the second season.
Lucas and Brooke’s Relationship
Peyton Sawyer (Burton Morgan) and Lucas were endgame, but Brooke and Lucas’ love story took up a significant portion of the first three seasons of One Tree Hill. Part of the reason for their continued romance was the behind-the-scenes relationship between Bush and Murray.
After meeting on the set of OTH, Bush and Murray tied the knot in April 2005 following less than two years of dating. Just five months after saying “I do,” they announced their split. While the exes remained professional while shooting the teen drama, Bush says OTH showrunners used their off-screen divorce drama to try to boost ratings.
“[The producers] were actually really deeply inappropriate to both of us about it,” Bush said on “Armchair Expert.” “They ran TV ads about our breakup. It was really ugly.”
Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for The Women's March Los Angeles
Brooke’s Activism
Since her time on One Tree Hill, Bush has emerged as a prominent activist, working with political campaigns and founding “I Am a Voter.” However, her penchant for effecting change and standing up for others began way before the teen drama — and even made its way into her character.
In One Tree Hill season 2, episode 12, “Between Order and Randomness,” sees Brooke get her first job at a crab shack, and eventually she rallies the other employees to protest for better working conditions.
“I loved seeing Brooke awaken to the potential of her mind and igniting that justice flame,” Bush said of the storyline in a February 2022 episode of “Drama Queens.” “That was one of those places where I was like, ‘Oh, they’re starting to pull me into this character.’”
Burton Morgan added: “You organizing, you being a leader, and [the producers] tapping into that part of you is so rewarding to watch because it’s not even Brooke. It’s like, that’s my friend Sophia. She’s here to burn s—t down.”
The storyline about teens openly saving their virginity for marriage on One Tree Hill brought fans the beloved characters Chase Adams (played by Stephen Colletti) and Shelley Simon (played by Elisabeth Harnois). However, Burton says the group was actually based on the real-life “Clean Teens” club she founded in high school.
“I started Clean Teens just with my pack of friends at parties, and it wasn’t just about virginity, we also didn’t smoke and didn’t drink. It was clean across the board,” Burton revealed on a January 2023 episode of “Drama Queens.” “It was not weirdos. It was the captain of the football team and the girls on the volleyball squad, and it was kind of this cross-section of the school that just needed to have a safe space.”
Burton added that while she didn’t get a say in how her former club was fictionalized, she did have a hand in casting Harnois.
“[Schwahn and I] had a conversation on an airplane where he was like, ‘We’re gonna make fun of your high school club, who do you want to play you?’” Burton said. “I was like, ‘My friend Elizabeth is the only person I can trust to play that part.’ Because she, I knew, wouldn’t just make fun of the Clean Teens. She would add an element of, ‘No, we’re hurt kids and we’re trying to make a safe space.’”
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Julian and Brooke’s Relationship
After meeting through their common manager, Bush sparked an on-off relationship with Austin Nichols while filming season 3 of One Tree Hill. “I had been through a not-great breakup and had decided I hated men and sweet Austin Nichols came around and brought me on my first date since then,” she shared on a February 2024 episode of “Drama Queens.”
Bush revealed that it came as a shock to her that years later, Nichols was being brought on One Tree Hill’s season 6 to play Julian Baker.
“When you came to Wilmington I blew a gasket,” she told Nichols on the podcast episode. “I was like, ‘What the f—k is happening? I’ve gone out with three people in a decade and one of them is here. What is happening?’”
She continued: “I totally lost my s—t and I remember our bosses being like, ‘Don’t worry, there’s this amazing thing with him and Peyton and you guys will never interact on camera,’ is what they said to me. Cut to our characters got married and had kids and I was like, ‘I was duped but I’m not mad at it.’ They played matchmaker for us in the weirdest way, which I was like, ‘Is that appropriate for your bosses to do?’ But also, it was such a sweet season.”
After he joined the cast, Bush and Nichols rekindled their romance, which lasted until the series ended in 2012 — but the duo remain good friends.
“I remember hearing things like that and rumblings like that,” Nichols said in response to Bush’s story. “Probably not just on this show, but on others, but on this show it seemed pointed. There was a lot of mining of your life, for better or for worse.”
On season 6, episode 10 of One Tree Hill, Peyton puts on a USO concert for marines. Burton Morgan revealed on a January 2024 episode of “Drama Queens” that the storyline was based on a real-life USO tour she did the previous summer.
“Everyone knows that my childhood friend died in Iraq, and it was a horrible death. And I was really struggling with that, and it was probably the thing I was most vulnerable about at this point,” she said. “We’re eight episodes in, and I’m still not speaking to our boss — until he scripts in this USO stuff. Because in my personal life, I had just gone to this huge USO tour over the summer, and it was really meaningful to me.”
Burton Morgan continued: “You’ve got this person who’s been so awful to you giving you this gift, and it’s what narcissists do: they love bomb you when they can’t control you. And this was a really complicated storyline for me because I wanted to do nice things for the troops. I wanted to draw attention to them and honor them, but it was coming from someone who was not safe.”
Julian’s Love of Movies
Julian’s character is a movie producer who, throughout the seasons, reveals himself to be a major movie nerd. This was a plotline that was mined from Nichols’ real life — but he wasn’t mad about it.
“My favorite storyline was probably when [Julian] locked in on turning the story into a show at the very end [of the series],” Nichols said on a February 2024 episode of “Drama Queens.” “Because that was him coming back full circle and saying, ‘Look, I’m a movie guy,’ which was my own life and that was mined by the writers, and it was one I was OK with because I started in movies and then it evolved to doing a lot more television.”
David Livingston/Getty Images
Peyton’s Struggles With Fertility
Burton opened up about her struggles with fertility and miscarriages in her 2020 memoir, The Rural Diaries. In an April 2024 episode of “Drama Queens,” the actress alleged that the writers used her fertility struggles as an emotional storyline for Peyton in season 6 of One Tree Hill.
“Between seasons 1 and 2 I had some fertility issues,” she said. “I had a problem that caused me to miss a photoshoot in L.A., and our boss lost his f—king mind and told me I was ruining everything.”
Burton went on to recall how she was known as the “kid lady” and always dreamt of getting pregnant and having kids. When she experienced fertility issues, she alleges that the One Tree Hill producers used her pain as fuel for her character, who experienced issues with her own season 6 pregnancy.
“The powers that be knew that I had this heartache about this specific issue, so it’s difficult to see a younger version of myself navigating this knowing that my future was going to be a future of loss,” Burton added. “I knew that I was going to have pregnancy loss. I knew that I was going to need to have abortions at some point in my life. And so, it was really easy to cry in these scenes. It was easy to tap into something. But, like, did they think I was that s—ty of an actress that we always had to tap into the real stuff? It was manipulative.”
Bush shared her sympathy for her costar: “As your friend, that just makes me want to chop off heads because it wasn’t that they had nothing else to do, it was that our boss really enjoyed making people act out versions of their real personal lives on camera,” she said. “He really took a lot of pleasure in that.”
Following her time on the show, Burton Morgan welcomed two children, son Gus (born in 2010) and daughter George (born in 2018), with husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
