Hilarie Burton has claimed her ‘creepy’ boss on hit show One Tree Hill ‘wrote himself into an episode’ just so he could give her a hug.
The actress, 41, played singer Peyton Sawyer on the popular teen drama for six seasons.
In a new interview, without naming the man, Hilarie recalled how he forced the pair to hug despite them not being on talking terms.
Speaking on the August 21 episode of her Drama Queens podcast with some of her co-stars, Hilarie recalled that the moment was ‘so creepy,’ as she explained: ‘I wasn’t speaking to him in real life, and so he wrote himself into the episode of me hugging him.’
Co-star Sophia Bush asked: ‘Can you guys imagine Shonda Rhimes or Aaron Sorkin casting themselves on their own show?’
Creepy moment: Hilarie Burton has claimed her ‘creepy’ boss on hit show One Tree Hill ‘wrote himself into an episode’ just so he could give her a hug
Small screen stars: One Tree Hill aired from 2003-2012 and followed the lives of a group of teens growing up in North Carolina. Hilarie ( back row, centre) played Peyton Sawyer
She explained how she felt some sense of safety as family members worked on the show. ‘I got the script and I was like, “All right, it’s one day of work. It’s just one day of work,”‘ she said.
‘And you know, my boyfriend’s dad [Gregory Prange] was directing, and my brother’s on set.’
She added though that she asked her dad to come to set that day as ‘it just wasn’t quite enough.’
‘My dad came and sat behind the monitor the whole day, which was kinda weird, right? Because he clearly wasn’t there to be friendly. He was just being a presence.’
She recalled: ‘In between every take, I would just beeline to the monitor and go stand next to my dad, because you can’t touch me, you can’t pull me into a sidebar conversation, you can’t do any of that if I’m just making jokes with my dad.’
Referring to her boss as the villain in Harry Potter, she continued: ‘Voldemort goes off to the production office, where his office has view of the parking lot, and my dad and [sound mixer Michael Rayle] proceeded to go out to crew parking and pull out bullwhips and start doing all these tricks and cracking them real loud.
‘It was just like a message, like: “Hey, don’t.”’
One Tree Hill — which ran for nine seasons from 2003 to 2012 — was created by Mark Schwahn, who also appeared as record store owner Max on the series.
Hilarie was one of 18 women – including her co-stars Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz – who in 2017 accused Schwahn, 56, of sexual harassment during its making.
Alongside the One Tree Hill cast, 25 women from Schwahn’s E! show The Royals, accused him of varying degrees of sexual misconduct.
Schwahn was subsequently fired as showrunner from The Royals.
Hilarie and her fellow accusers said in a letter that TV executive Mark’s behaviour was so extreme it forced some to seek treatment for PTSD.
It read: ‘Many of us were, to varying degrees, manipulated psychologically and emotionally.
‘More than one of us is still in treatment for post-traumatic stress.
Iconic show: Hilarie is pictured with her co-stars James Lafferty, Bethany Joy Lenz, Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray in 2004
‘Many of us were put in uncomfortable positions and had to swiftly learn to fight back, sometimes physically, because it was made clear to us that the supervisors in the room were not the protectors they were supposed to be.’
Schwahn has never responded publicly to the allegations.
Hilarie previously admitted she found it liberating to speak out against the alleged abuse.
She told Page Six at the 2023 Tribeca Festival about making the accusation: ‘It is an age-old lesson, that honesty is always better, it sets you free.
‘I think when you’re young, you’re led to believe that keeping quiet about things is how you protect people you care about, and what I’ve learned is that speaking up is way better.’
