Hilarie Burton allegedly endured a sexual assault on the set of One Tree Hill and Chad Michael Murray called out the accuser.
Hilarie Burton Recounts Sexual Assault
The actress got down to the nitty gritty on her podcast “Drama Queens” with Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz about the time a boss sexually took advantage of her. She didn’t reveal the name of her accuser, but she did share that Chad stepped in and supported her.
The whole ordeal went down after the boss supposedly “grab[bed her] in front of” a crowd of people. “Chad walked up and goes, ‘What are you doing?’ He said that to our boss in the bar,” she recalled, shocked.
But Burton recalls that Chad didn’t have “anything to lose.” Apparently, the relationship between Chad and the boss was already tarnished. “He knew our boss hated him anyway.” Sophia chimed in with an explanation. He was “protected as the No. 1 on the call sheet” therefore having the “most power” to speak up.
Hilarie Burton & Sophia Bush Are Grateful
The stars of the show are happy that Chad went ahead and exuded his power in that way. “He could come up and shove our boss off you and get in a fight. And I’m glad that he did,” Sophia said. “I want everybody to follow that lead.”
This is not the first time that Sophia, Bethany, and Hilarie have shared horror stories from the set of the WB show. Over the course of the six seasons that both Hilarie and Chad were on, he has had to stick up for the girls on set more than anyone should have to.
In 2021, Hilarie shared in a shady tweet that it was basically a mess behind the scenes. “We were both treated badly, and … Chad was my teammate,” she tweeted at the time. “My bosses were the s–ts.”
Hilarie Burton Was Assaulted Multiple Times
Hilarie shared that she was actually assaulted two more times by the same person. Once on a flight and another time during a car ride on company time. “I didn’t know how to process it anymore. My reaction to that kind of stuff is to not let it ruin my good time,” she said of the multiple assaults.
She was later further embarrassed when her co-star Danneel Harris told her that their boss said they “made out”. Danneel was one of the women who spoke up regularly to this boss about the assault.
According to Hilarie, the actress was dating now-husband Jensen Ackles and had repeatedly declined the boss’s advances in the past. He told her the whole make out story as an attempt to make her jealous.
Danneel had the guts to not care and further tell her boss, “Please stop hitting on me and please stop touching me and please stop trying to make out with me at bars. I’m very uncomfortable.” Yikes, that’s an awkward conversation.
Again, Hilarie didn’t name who she was referring to, but in the past, she has called out Mark Schwahn another producer on set for “grooming” her.
