Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris did NOT cheat on their former spouses with each other. Full stop.
That’s the message we get from the new episode of Call Her Daddy, in which the One Tree Hill alum refreshingly opens up about everything.
Back when Sophia and Ashlyn first linked up in 2023, fans on both sides took to social media to raise their questions. Both stars were just coming off the heels of filing for divorce — Sophia from Grant Hughes, Ashlyn from Ali Krieger — and Ali had shared an Instagram post referencing Beyoncé’s infidelity album Lemonade in the caption.
There was a lot of speculation, but thanks to Sophia’s conversation with podcast host Alex Cooper, everyone can see there’s also an explanation for everything.
She says she met the soccer pro on Instagram in 2015 and then in real life in 2019:
“We went to an event that a bunch of women on the team threw. It was like an artist and activist luncheon. I remember how fun it was because a bunch of us had met [online] and you know that moment where you’re like, ahh, off the internet, finally!
So she met Ashlyn before she even got with Grant Hughes, the man she’d later marry in 2022 (and separate in 2023). But their friendship didn’t really expand further until she was already done with Grant — and, by her account, he was done too.
Another reason the internet was so confused when Ashlyn and Sophia got together in October 2023 was because Sophia had posted a joyful-seeming anniversary post for Grant in June 2023. From the outside looking in, a lot of social media users had questions about the timeline, as it seemed pretty fast, but Sophia says the truth is way more simpler than any speculation.
See, even though Sophia posted that anniversary message just months before publicly splitting, the two were already sleeping in separate beds by then, and she explains she really only posted it on the off chance they’d work through their problems. She explains:
“There’s a really hard thing about the shame and when it looks really good from the outside and I know the feeling like I posted about how happy I was on my anniversary and I had already told my best friend I’m not going to be able to stay in this marriage and then I thought to myself but if I don’t celebrate this the internet’s going to come for me and if by some magical measure we work through it, it’ll be messy forever. So, the the public thing adds a layer because you keep performing. You keep pretending it’s okay even when you’re not sleeping in the same bed, even when you’re living on separate floors of your house, even when your parents know you are not sleeping at all and miserable.”
Now that it’s explained in detail like that, we think a lot of people can understand it. Life is layered and messy and complicated. Social media is not always a true mirror to what’s really going on.
Sophia and Grant would quickly separate after that, and she officially filed for divorce in August.
Meanwhile, Ashlyn and Ali had been having their own problems. They too separated in the summer of 2023 and Ashlyn filed for divorce in September, calling their marriage “irretrievably broken.”
Then, through a support group for mutual friends going through divorce and separation, Sophia and Ashlyn begin connecting on a deeper level. For years they’d just been friends in the same social circle, but now something was unveiling itself for them that Sophia hadn’t been able to recognize before.
Related: Alex Cooper Is A Mom! See The Precious Baby Photo!
She says as her romantic feelings for Ashlyn grew, she started wondering if there had been an “invisible string” between them the whole time, if Ashlyn was the missing puzzle piece, etc. Her realization that she was falling in love with a woman, and having never been in a relationship with one before, was “surreal” for her. She explains struggling to accept it at first, but ultimately she faced the reality of her feelings and came to terms with her truth.
It was such an overwhelming internal process for her that she says anyone who thought it was just a “casual leap” has no idea who she is. And when she was finally ready to come clean to Ashlyn about how she felt, she was overcome with nerves:
“I was so nervous to say something to her that I did it at an event for a friend that I was only at because I was on a stopover on my way on a trip with my family. And I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do like a layover for the night, stay with my best friend in Tribeca. We’ll go to our friend’s big presentation. Like, we’re so happy for her. It’s this big moment for her company. And then I’m going to go get on a plane.” And I was like, “Well, I’m leaving the country.” So, this is perfect because I’m leaving the country and if she says no, I can cry into my mother’s arms for 9 days overseas and come back and pretend this never happened.”
Then she explains how she asked her out:
“I mumbled a lot. It’s so embarrassing. She had to sort of figure it out because I was like, ‘you know, the [support] group and [I’m] so grateful and it’s been so nice to like have this [support] and [I] probably wouldn’t have lived through the summer without you guys. And these [events] are so nice and [I’m] happy for her brand. That was wonderful.’ And she’s like, ‘Are you having a stroke? Like what’s going on?’ And I was like, ‘you know, it’s it’s been so nice. Like the dinner we all had together after the big event was so lovely … but maybe we should just like have a meal not with everyone.’ I’ve never been less cool. She literally was like, ‘Are you asking me on a date?’ And I was like, ‘Yes.” I was It was terrifying.”
You know what? That’s actually super sweet. And super brave!
But then came the actual date, which made her even more nervous. She says:
“I tried on 900 tops, but like, you know, it was such a weird thing and I can feel like my mouth is dry and my fingers are tingly like even thinking about it, my body is back there because it was this really surreal thing. I was like, I’ve sat next to this person so many times. I’ve like sorority girl jumped into like her and other friends arms at events and like charged the patriarchy and called about the things and congratulated each other on the life stuff that looked great online and suddenly someone I never blinked at I can’t breathe around. It felt like meeting a new person. It was like every everything in my body just like clicked and I was like, ‘Oh, this is what alignment feels like.'”
Sophia compares being with Ashlyn to getting “oxygen for the first time,” and she wasn’t about to let that go.
And, no, there was absolutely NO romantic overlap from their relationship and their former marriages. She may have been a little nervous about their date, but she’s super firm and clear about this part:
“Two people who had filed for divorce and lived in separate residences from their exes went to dinner.”
When Alex straight up asks if there was “no overlap” here, Sophia responds:
“Yes. I can say that [there was no overlap]. Everybody wishes they could have done a million things differently at the time. Like, do I wish that instead of flying home and stopping in New York cuz I already had tickets to a comedy show and taking her on a date, I’d taken her on a date 6 weeks later? Like, yeah, of course I do. But I can’t change it. And what I can’t do is change my reality for anyone else. And I also can’t be my own personal definition of insanity, which is try the same thing over and over again with no result. I’m never going to change anybody’s mind who made it up.”
She also offers a heartfelt reason as to why she’d never be party to an affair on either side, reminding listeners:
“I’ve done too much work on myself to hurt someone when I’ve been hurt.”
It sounds like Sophia wanted to publicly explain it all at the time, but she was advised to lean into quiet mode. So she took that opportunity to let her and Ashlyn’s love grow, away from the noise of everything else.
Now they’re both married, having wed in a super intimate, magical backyard ceremony last summer. Ashlyn recently told Vogue:
“The kids were just running and happy, and we picked flowers from the property and our daughter Sloane was holding them. It was so fun for them, because it wasn’t this pressure-filled day that’s too much for young kids. It was so precious, and zero pressure. I will never forget it, and I think wedding days sometimes aren’t like that.”
Back to the Call Her Daddy podcast, Sophia reveals SHE was the one who proposed to Ashlyn!
LOVE IT!!
Deeply in love and deeply aligned, these two are clearly living their best lives now. Sophia is absolutely glowing thinking about her renewed life:
“Now I’m with someone who finishes my sentences and vice versa, who makes me laugh in moments that laughter feels impossible and all the other moments too.”
Becoming beautifully emotional, she says their wedding day was “the best, most perfect day,” explaining:
“I was the most in my body I have ever been. We sobbed and we laughed, and it was exactly right, and I’m so thankful. It was like the very last stitch I put on every wound that I was sewing up for myself. It was like, I had to do all of this [healing] for me, but the last steps of it I can’t do without her.”
This year they were honored with the Vanguard Angel Award at the inaugural A Sense of Home Gala in New York City. The organization aims to prevent homelessness and cultivate a sense of community for young people in the foster care system.
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Sophia’s memoir, And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes from a Life in Progress, is also out now, available online and in bookstores. Ashlyn’s autobiographical documentary, Gamechangers: The Ashlyn Harris Story, is available to stream on the Roku Channel, and her podcast Wide Open can be heard on iHeartRadio.
Watch the full Call Her Daddy episode in full below:
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