Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush say 'One Tree Hill' boss threatened them into a 2006 Maxim shoot

Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush

Hilarie Burton and Sophia Bush, on the show "One Tree Hill," say they were forced to do a photo shoot for Maxim magazine in 2006. On their Drama Queens podcast, Burton, Bush, and co-star Bethany Joy Lenz talked about what went on behind the scenes of an old OTH episode. Lenz said that she wasn't on the cover of Maxim because she was "too fat."

The actresses started by talking about how the network added the Maxim storyline to the fourth season so that more men would watch.

"I had pulled aside and told that when my character Peyton got her behind kicked by Derek, the number of male viewers went through the roof. Burton said, "There's a pattern on our show where either violence against women or super sexualized situations are going to increase because they were hot to attract the male audience." "It scared me a lot, but I had to be a good sport about it... They were trying to catch the guys. They couldn't do it with basketball, so we'll punch a girl in the face."

Brooke being sexualized

Bush added, "I know they weren't trying to find basement bullies on the internet, but they saw that a lot of young men were interested in violent attacks on women, so they said, 'Let's do more of that.'" Not, "Oh, no." "Maybe we should do more!" they said. Maybe we should tell the girls that if they don't do Maxim, they'll be fired!'"

In the show, Brooke, played by Bush, takes pictures of Rachel, who is played by Danneel Ackles, for the "Hometown Hotties" issue of Maxim magazine. The episode aired in October 2006, a month before Bush, Burton, and Ackles were on the cover.

Bush said, "We really did try to make it the best we could, but we had to do it because we were told to."

"Because Brooke had been sexualized so much on the show and because 'Hometown Hottie' was all about Rachel's storyline, I told the girls, 'Look, if you want to do it, that's great. I don't. I've been fighting to get Brooke to like this thing less that you guys tried to make me do. I don't want to do it,'" Bush went on. "I was told, 'If you don't go shoot this cover with your other co-stars, we will never let you out for a press day, a movie, an event, or any of your charities. We'll keep you here until you die.'"

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"Soft pitch"

Burton remembered being called into a production office where higher-ups gave her a "soft pitch": "Look, all the other shows have been on the cover of every magazine, but no one wants you guys. Nobody likes you. And now that someone wants you, you're just going to turn your nose up at that?"

"It was very much, 'No one else wants you, the studio wants to cancel your show, and if you don't start to get some buzz and attract these male numbers, we're dead and all your friends are going to lose their jobs,'" Burton said.

Bush said she pushed back because she didn't want to do the shoot but "was told I had to."

"It was such a serious threat that I was afraid I wouldn't even be able to leave for the weekend. At this point in the season, I was trying to leave every chance I got. "I'd go to work, do my job, and then I'd want to leave," Bush said. "I wanted to go home because I missed my family. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be on our set because I felt unsafe there. This was such a safety risk!"

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Burton, Bush, and Lenz

In 2017, Burton, Bush, and Lenz said that OTH creator Mark Schwahn had harassed women. Burton and Bush said on Sunday's podcast that Schwahn showed up on the set of the Maxim shoot and made them feel "uncomfortable."

"We were all pitted against each other, and here's a great example," Lenz said, explaining that her co-stars told her they were filming Maxim and had "replaced" her with Ackles.

"They told me that they didn't come to me because I was too fat and I just wasn't a hot girl on the show anymore," Lenz remembered.

Burton and Bush

Burton and Bush were surprised when their friend told them what had happened.

"They say, 'She told me no, so I have to say yes. She said "no" first," said Bush. "They used you as an excuse to say that the three of us couldn't say no... We weren't mad at you, but we were mad about what happened."

Lenz said Schwahn must have been sad when she married in 2005. She later remembered that her character, Haley, was called "a fat girl with a little head" in the script.

"I remember seeing that written down and being like, "What? It's so weird. That must be what he thinks about me,'" Lenz said. "Sometimes someone will say something to you that makes you think, 'I never, ever saw myself that way.' Now, whenever I look at myself in the mirror, I think, "Am I fat? I suppose I do have a small brain. How bad is that? Is that not pretty?' It's so stupid, but I couldn't get it out of my mind for a long time.

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