Actress Sophia Bush has come out as queer, a year after announcing that her short-lived marriage had ended.
The 41-year-old star of “One Tree Hill” has opened up about her love life in an intimate feature-length magazine article.
Writing in Glamour, she described the cold feet she experienced before tying the knot with entrepreneur Grant Hughes in July 2022.
“In April of 2022 I was close to calling off my wedding. Instead of running away, I doubled down on being a model wife,” she wrote.
She admitted that they “threw one of the greatest wedding weekends ever,” but went on to open up about the difficult year that followed.
Bush said she kept trying to tell herself that “relationships are hard” and “marriage takes compromise” but ultimately it was the “heartbreak of the fertility process” that led her to reassess her relationship.
She wrote: “As I lost track of how many examination tables I had lain on alone, I felt something in me seismically shift. Six months into that journey, I think I knew deep down that I absolutely had made a mistake.”
This realization, she said, prompted her to take some time out by acceping a theatrical role in London’s West End – though ultimately she had to pull out some time later due to sickness.
Then, returning home to LA last summer, Bush grew closer to a group of women who were also going through relationship breakdowns and other issues at home. Among them was former soccer player Ashlyn Harris, whom Bush said she had known for four years and who was splitting from her wife and former teammate, Ali Krieger.
She described “falling in love” with Harris, adding: “I sort of hate the notion of having to come out in 2024. But I’m deeply aware that we are having this conversation in a year when we’re seeing the most aggressive attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community in modern history.
“There were more than 500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills proposed in state legislatures in 2023, so for that reason I want to give the act of coming out the respect and honor it deserves. I’ve experienced so much safety, respect, and love in the queer community, as an ally all of my life, that, as I came into myself, I already felt it was my home.”
“I think I’ve always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum,” Bush wrote, adding. “Right now I think the word that best defines it is queer. I can’t say it without smiling, actually. And that feels pretty great.”
