One Tree Hill cast members discuss ‘heinous’ episode about sexual assault

‘I wish we had done a better job with this episode,’ actor Sophia Bush says

One Tree Hill’s former stars have discussed the “heinous” episode involving the sexual assault of main character Peyton.

On Monday’s (16 August) episode of the Drama Queen Podcast, actors Sophia Bush (who played Brooke), Hilarie Burton (Peyton), and Bethany Joy Lenz (Haley) discussed episode eight of season one of the famous drama series.

The co-actors began by discussing how the episode starts in an ultimately “heinous” way.

“I wish we were able to take a whole episode to work out that storyline and all the implications of that because it felt a bit glossed over,” said Burton.

Bush added: “Yeah, I mean, if you have never been assaulted and you’re writing an episode about assault, it is really easy to be like, ‘Hey man, nothing happened, you’re fine, wake up the next day and put on your backpack and go to school’.”

The actors continued discussing what would have happened if the show was made today.

“If this show was made today, [the characters] would be definitely reporting this, because if he (Gabe) is going to roofy Peyton, he’s going to roofy others,” Burton said. “He had a pack of pills.”

“There is something that is so deeply traumatic about the realisation as a young woman that you move through the world and by more people than you thought are looked as prey rather than as a person and we really just gloss over that,” Joy Lenz added.

Bush likewise commented on the ‘blaring’ tone that the episode sets.

“This episode is blaring, because the girl starts off [by] going to shop in a lingerie store and the result is that she is sexually assaulted,” she said. “And nowhere in [the episode] is the conversation that ‘baby you didn’t ask for this’, it is just assumed that [a girl] dressed up in cheetah print like a slut at a party and this is what happens, [so] just sleep it off.”

The actor then corrects the narrative by commenting and giving advice that “don’t sleep it off, [and instead] report it, and get checked up on as the shame that makes [a woman] feel that it's going to plague me forever and I’m not going to be believed, you will feel better after reporting it.”

“I wish we had done a better job with this episode,” she added.

Hilarie Burton in 2004 (Getty Images)

They acknowledged that these things can be triggering for everyone to watch. “That was triggering for all of us to watch,” Burton said.

She also had a special message for the fans. She said: “So many of you have trusted us with your narratives and with the things that have happened in your personal lives aside from the show, we hope, girl to girl, that you have the resources and the support system to deal with it.”

In the previous week’s episode, the trio had explored Burton’s experience of filming her first sex scene on the show.