Comparing the TV boss to 'Harry Potter' villain, the Peyton Sawyer depicter recalls how he wrote a scene where she hugged him while they were not on speaking terms in real life.
- Aug 30, 2023
AceShowbiz - Hilarie Burton has revealed her "creepy" boss at "One Tree Hill" "wrote himself into an episode" just so he could give her a hug. The 41-year-old star portrayed singer Peyton Sawyer on the popular teen drama for six seasons and was one of 17 other women - including her co-stars Sophia Bush, also 41, and 42-year-old Bethany Joy Lenz - who in 2017 accused the show's creator, Mark Schwahn, 56, of sexual harassment during its making.
Without naming him, Hilarie recalled in a new interview how he forced the pair to embrace despite them not being on talking terms. "I wasn't speaking to him in real life, and so he wrote himself into the episode of me hugging him," she said on her "Drama Queens" podcast with some of her co-stars.
Bethany called the move "so psychotic." And Sophia asked, "Can you guys imagine Shonda Rhimes or Aaron Sorkin casting themselves on their own show?"
Schwahn played record store owner Max in the episode. And Hilarie rushed to be by her father Michael Rayle's side "between every take" as he worked on the show as a sound mixer.
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."
Her dad would show Schwahn that he wouldn't want to risk his wrath by "cracking bullwhips." 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 proceed 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.' "
Hilarie previously admitted she found it liberating to speak out against the alleged abuse. She told Page Six at the 2023 Tribeca Festival premiere of "The Walking Dead: Dead City" 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."
"One Tree Hill" aired from 2003 to 2006 and 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. 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."
Mark has never personally addressed the allegations made against him.
Hilarie also told Page Six she runs her "mouth about a lot of stuff" and has also been outspoken about other issues including the time a video resurfaced of Ben Affleck groping her during an appearance on MTV's "Total Request Live". After the clip went viral in 2017, the actress tweeted that she hadn't forgotten about the incident and added, "I was a kid."
"The Flash" actor Ben, 51, later apologised for his behaviour, tweeting, "I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologise."
