- Sophia Bush recalled an encounter with a man who called her a "piece of meat" and a "TV prostitute."
- She told Penn Badgley and his "Podcrushed" cohosts incidents like that make her weary about being in public.
On Wednesday's episode of Penn Badgley's podcast "Podcrushed," "Chicago P.D." star Sophia Bush recalled a disturbing encounter she had with a man while out at a bar in Chicago years ago.
Around the one-hour mark of the conversation, Bush told Badgley and his cohosts Nava Kavelin and Sophie Ansari that she was at a bar with some "Chicago P.D." colleagues on St. Patrick's Day when a man came up to her, stuck a camera in her face, and took a picture. According to Bush, the stranger then went back to his seat but continued to take photos and videos of her from a distance.
Bush, who said the man's actions made her feel like a "zoo animal," recalled that she eventually approached the man, introduced herself, and asked him to please stop recording her and her friends because it was making her uncomfortable.
According to the "One Tree Hill" star, the man's response was less than kind. He told her she was in public and he didn't have to stop. Bush said she continued to try to reason with him, telling him he was making her feel like a "piece of meat."
"I watch your show so I pay your fuckin' salary, you are a piece of meat to me," was the man's reply, according to Bush.
Bush said she was shocked and that one of the man's female friends then tried to get him to stop, while she continued to try to explain that she was a human being and that the man had no right to harass her.
At that point, Bush recalled the man saying, "You're just a TV prostitute." She said that eventually, a man she was with got involved, and a physical fight broke out. She described the experience as "insane" and said it prompted her to go home and is an example of why fame has changed her social life.
"I don't enjoy being in public anymore," she told the "Podcrushed" hosts. "Now I'd much rather be at home. I used to love to go out and be in the world."
Bush, who lived in Chicago for a few years while filming the NBC series "Chicago P.D," confessed that even retelling the story made her emotional.
The "Good Sam" star has spoken out in the past about other negative experiences as a working actor. In 2018, she opened up about leaving "Chicago P.D." the previous year after four seasons because of assault and behavior she described as "abusive." More recently, in 2022, Bush discussed how her experiences on both "Chicago P.D." and the early 2000s CW teen drama "One Tree Hill" "poisoned" her career choices and "ran the gamut of severity."
In 2017, Bush was one of many former female "One Tree Hill" cast members who signed a letter published in Variety in support of TV writer Audrey Wauchope detailing the ways women were abused "psychologically and emotionally" by the creator of the teen drama, Mark Schwahn.
New episodes of "Podcrushed" are released on Wednesdays.