Sophia Bush is fighting back against those who accusing her of being a “home-wrecker” in her relationship with former US soccer player Ashlyn Harris, calling the internet rumors “blatant lies.”
In case you missed it, news broke that Bush and Harris were seeing each other in October 2023, shortly after it was reported that Harris and fellow soccer star Ali Krieger were getting divorced. Although the news of the split was reported in October, Harris, who shares two young kids with Krieger, had filed for divorce in mid-September. For her part, Bush had split with her husband a few months prior.
After the news of their relationship became public, many online began to accuse Bush and Harris of getting together while they were still with their respective spouses. However, in her raw and emotional April 2024 Glamour cover story, Sophia Bush is putting the rumors to rest, once and for all.
Namely, she says, there was no wrongdoing on either side. In fact, she writes, she and Harris met in a makeshift support group for friends going through a divorce. But just as quickly as the couple started to explore their future together the internet rumors began—and they usually do—and it “quickly turned ugly,” she writes.
“What felt like seconds after I started to see what was in front of me, the online rumor mill began to spit in the ugliest ways,” Bush writes. “There were blatant lies. Violent threats. There were the accusations of being a home-wrecker. The ones who said I’d left my ex because I suddenly realized I wanted to be with women—my partners have known what I’m into for as long as I have (so that’s not it, y’all, sorry!).”
On the contrary, says Bush, both she and Harris worked hard to have “painful conversations” in order to be “graceful” with everyone’s feelings. For Bush, the rumors felt unfair.
“The idea that I left my marriage based on some hysterical rendezvous—that, to be crystal-clear, never happened—rather than having taken over a year to do the most soul crushing work of my life? Rather than realizing I had to be the most vulnerable I’ve ever been, on a public stage, despite being terrified to my core? It feels brutal,” she writes.
She wants people to realize, she says, that sharing every detail of her personal life online isn’t something she chose to do—and it’s not fair game to speculate about it.
“Just because I didn’t want to process my realizations in real time on social media and spell them out for the world doesn’t mean the journey wasn’t long and thoughtful and exhaustive,” she says.
All people need to know? That she is in a happy relationship with Harris, where they can both be themselves.
“I am so lucky to be here, now. I have real joy. It took me 41 years to get here,” she says.