Sophia Bush’s exit from Chicago PD took place under a hail of confusion and complicated accusations, and for the first time the actress opens up about the circumstances that caused her to leave the drama after debuting as an original cast member.
In her new book And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes From a Life in Progress, the actress recalls that her time on the Chicago PD set was turbulent from the very start without naming names. She recalls that even during the press junket lead-up to the debut of the show, which was fraught with tension and misery for everyone involved.
“An inappropriate comment. A raised voice. A hair pull. A held breath. A clenched jaw. A clenched fist. Fist connecting with flesh. And then, worse. Much worse [..] Things done when there were fewer people in the room, but the rooms were never empty. Averted eyes, silenced protests, and whispers when something went wrong. Knowing our set was the one talked about on all the others. Bracing for conflict, for screaming, for humiliation when something, anything, triggered outsized rage," the actress claims in her book per Entertainment Weekly.
Bush buckled down and vowed to do her job, deciding to sacrifice it all for the show, as she had done on her previous hit, One Tree Hill, but she found doing so to be impossible. She cut her hair short to avoid it being pulled, then tried to be unobtrusive and quiet. But all of her behind-the-scenes silence didn’t get her far. It ended up majorly affecting her health, resulting in hives, fluctuating weight, and other problems. Eventually, she decided to leave the program after four seasons of trying to make due with the situation.
After Bush signed a letter accusing One Tree Hill creator Mark Schwahn of sexually harassing his female stars, Bush was approached regarding her Chicago PD experience. But she was warned against coming out with the truth by her agent, who told her that it might endanger her career and result in her being blamed for the incident.
In the end, Bush didn’t speak personally on the matter, but then Variety released a report about the on-set behavior of Jason Beghe, who portrays Hank Voight on the show. They reported that an internal investigation took place, that a human resources report had been completed, and that Beghe declared in a statement included in the article that he took anger management courses in response to the article and declared himself sorry for his outbursts. Though Bush doesn’t name names in her book, she reports that she got a text from the man who mistreated her on-set soon after the piece about Beghe ran.
“My stomach dropped when I saw his name on my lock screen. I wondered what he could possibly want to say to me. I opened it and saw the message only contained the link to the cleanup piece. No other words. As if my boogeyman on the other end was saying, ‘Gotcha, you f---ing little b-tch,’ as he’d called me more than once at work. The article contained an assertion that he was remorseful and he’d apologized to everyone he’d hurt. Not to me, I thought. Not ever. Not that it mattered. I was done holding my breath.”
Bush adds that she got PTSD treatment for her emotional scars after her four-season run on Chicago PD. Reps for the drama, for NBC, and for Jason Beghe have not commented on the actress’ book as of this writing.
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