Sophia Bush and Bethany Pleasure Lenz Say It Was ‘Actually Bizarre’ Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton’s Exits Weren’t Addressed

Sophia Bush and Bethany Pleasure Lenz say they need their costars Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton’s time on One Tree Hill may have ended a unique means — they usually declare that “private beef” was the rationale for his or her exit.

Talking about how Murray, now 43, and Burton, 42, exited the hit CW teen drama collection after season 6 in 2009, Drama Queens podcast hosts Bush, 42, and Lenz, 43, mentioned they have been left confused about why their costars’ characters have been written off the present.

Studying a query from a viewer, Lenz mentioned: ” ‘I want we may have seen Haley studying a letter from Lucas simply to listen to what was happening of their lives. We don’t hear from Lucas till the final season. What would y’all think about Lucas, Peyton and Sawyer are as much as?’ ”

Within the collection created by Mark Schwahn, Murray and Burton starred as love pursuits, Lucas and Peyton, who marry and welcome a daughter in season 6. On the finish of the season, the characters are proven transferring out of city — however as Bush and Lenz level out, their exit is not totally defined.

“I do not even bear in mind the place they moved,” Lenz, who performed the character Haley for the total nine-season run of the collection, requested. “The place did they go?”

“I really feel like I bear in mind a West Coast factor or that they wished to journey whereas he wrote his subsequent novel,” Bush, who performed Brooke from 2003 to 2012, added. “That is the issue, they didn’t give us sufficient to make [sense] of the place our buddies went.”

Bush additionally claimed that the unassuming actors’ exit from the collection was talked about to “the powers that be” again in 2006, however a choice to jot down Murray and Burton out of the present had already been made.

“I do know we introduced this up with the powers that be on the time, however I really feel prefer it was extra of non-public beef than something that made sense for our characters, which is unlucky,” Bush mentioned. “I used to ask and be like, ‘Why cannot Brooke be getting textual content messages from Peyton? Why cannot you see them texting? Like why am I not getting picture updates of this child? It feels actually bizarre.’ ”

“He, our creator … was hoping the viewers would simply neglect about them,” the pair continued. “Which appears so silly, as a result of it is a selection rooted in ego and it is like, dude, you wrote these characters.”

Lenz additionally added that she felt it was unusual for the pair to be written out so all of the sudden when a lot of the present’s “world was constructed round” the characters and their love story.

“It is like making an attempt to show that the present may go on with out them and it did, nevertheless it may have made extra sense,” Lenz mentioned. “And [it] would have been extra good to simply have their presence nonetheless round not directly.”

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Burton has beforehand denied that she and Murray stop One Tree Hill and mentioned they have been each “handled badly” as their time on the collection got here to an finish.

“I am undecided the place your information is coming from, however Chad had nothing to do with my leaving,” the actress wrote on X again in 2021. “We have been each handled badly, and he defended me. I so admire your help, however I simply wished to make clear that Chad was my teammate. My bosses have been the s—-.”

“… I simply right [the rumors] as a result of I care about our OTH fam and don’t desire anybody carrying round false baggage,” she added. “Thanks for caring!! Xo.”

Murray, Burton, Bush, and Lenz, together with James Lafferty and Paul Johansson, all starred within the North Carolina-set drama when it premiered in 2003.