“I was a baby. I didn’t know up, down, left, right,” the ‘One Tree Hill’ alum says of the five-month marriage. “You move out there and you go, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do now? Get married?'”
Chad Michael Murray is sharing some rare insight on his short-lived marriage to One Tree Hill co-star, Sophia Bush.
In a new interview with The Cut, Murray said that while he chalked the failed relationship up to being young — Murray was 23 and Bush was 21 when they tied the knot in 2005 — the breakup left him pretty brokenhearted.
“I was a baby. I didn’t know up, down, left, right,” Murray said of their five-month marriage. “You move out there and you go, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do now? Get married? That’s exciting!'”
The pair would go on to divorce in 2006 and would continue to work together on the beloved teen drama.
Noting that he was “far more fragile than I ever put on,” Murray said the breakup coupled with fast fame spurred anxiety that began to manifest at the height of OTH.
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“Everyone starts telling you ‘yes.’ But I was walking around with a really pained heart,” he said before touching on his battle with agoraphobia, defined by the Mayo Clinic as an anxiety disorder that “involves fearing and avoiding places or situations that might cause panic and feelings of being trapped, helpless or embarrassed.”
“I was around 23 and I had an event in Miami, but I couldn’t leave my hotel room,” the Mother of the Bride star recalled. “The world felt like it was closing in; I was having anxiety attacks.”
While it’s something he still manages today, Murray said that early experience encouraged him to lean into his faith.
“I woke up and felt unsettled. I didn’t like the direction that I was going in my life,” he said. “I went to church, and I got a tattoo of a cross on my left wrist, and I was like, I’m going to move myself in faith.”
Coupled with therapy, Murray said its led him to the more introspective person he is today.
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“I always told myself, ‘I’m doing this for my future wife and kids,’ and now here they are,” Murray added of wife, Sarah Roemer, whom he married in 2015, 10 years after his split from Bush.” They have a son, 8, and two daughters, 7, and 8 months.
“It’s been the greatest chapter of my life,” he gushed.
Bush, too, has moved on, ending her marriage to ex-husband Grant Hughes last year and finding love with former U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team goalkeeper, Ashlyn Harris.
“As I came into myself, I already felt it was my home. I think I’ve always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum,” Bush wrote of coming out and going public with her relationship with Harris. “Right now I think the word that best defines it is queer. I can’t say it without smiling, actually. And that feels pretty great.”
As for her marriage to Murray, that’s not something she talks about anymore, telling Michael Rosenbaum on a 2021 episode of his Inside of You podcast, it’s not “worth” her time.
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“Oh, I’m not going to talk about him,” she maintained when asked about Murray. “You know what it is? I’m not allowed to because I’ve tried to poke fun at being a dumb kid and whenever I’ve done that, it gets twisted into I’m talking s–t about somebody who I don’t even know anymore, who’s clearly a grown-up.”
While Bush said she has no issues laughing at the person she “used to be,” she explained she doesn’t want to do the same about other people. “When people ask me about history that involves someone else … it’s not worth my time,” she added, “It’s not a place where I harbor ill will or anything.”
