One Tree Hill star Hilarie Burton claimed she once had to bring her dad on set while filming because of a ‘creepy’ moment with her boss.
The American teen drama TV series aired for nine seasons, spanning from September 2003 to April 2012.
Starring the likes of Burton, Chad Michael Murray, Sophia Bush, James Lafferty, and Bethany Joy Lenz, it became an instant fan-favourite and built up a devoted fanbase.
Now, a whole new slew of viewers will get to watch the show as every episode is set to drop onto Netflix on 1 March.
However, what new viewers might not know is that One Tree Hill has had its fair share of controversy over the years.
Most notably, Burton, who played Peyton Sawyer in the show, and 17 of her other cast members banded together and accused showrunner and executive producer Mark Schwahn of sexual assault and harassment.
Hilarie Burton, who played Peyton Sawyer in One Tree Hill, recalled an awkward on-set moment (CW)
They wrote in an open letter in Variety in 2017: “All of the female cast members of One Tree Hill have chosen this forum to stand together in support of Audrey Wauchope and one another.
“Mark Schwahn’s behavior over the duration of the filming of One Tree Hill was something of an ‘open secret.’”
It alleged that women on the show were ‘manipulated psychologically and emotionally’ and at points, made to feel ‘physically unsafe’.
Schwahn has never publicly addressed the allegations but was suspended from his role as showrunner on E!’s The Royals after they came to light.
During a 2023 episode of Burton’s podcast Drama Queens, which she hosts with her former castmates, Bush and Joy Lenz, she spoke about a specific moment that made her feel uncomfortable.
She reportedly did not refer to her boss by name and instead called him ‘Voldemort’, after the Harry Potter villain.
Mark Schwahn has never publicly commented on the allegations (Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)
According to Entertainment Weekly, Burton admitted that she dreaded filming the season five episode ‘Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace’ because Schwahn had written himself into a scene where his minor character hugs Burton’s.
The actress said: “I wasn’t speaking to him in real life, and so he wrote himself into the episode of me hugging him. It was so creepy.
“I got the script, and I was like, ‘All right, it’s one day of work. It’s just one day of work.’ And you know my boyfriend’s dad [Gregory Prange] was directing, and my brother’s on set.
“There’s all these dudes on set, and it just wasn’t quite enough, so I invited my dad to work this day, and my dad came and sat behind the monitor the whole day.”
The actress told the story on her podcast in 2023 (The CW)
Burton explained: “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.”
Referring to Schwahn by his nickname, ‘Voldemort’, she recalled how he went into the production office, which had a view of the parking lot.
She said: “My dad and [sound mixer Michael Rayle, a former animal trainer and fellow whip enthusiast] proceed to go out to parking and pull out bullwhips and start doing all these tricks and cracking them real loud. It was just like a message, like: Don’t. What an awkward day at work.”
Tyla has reached out to Schwahn for comment via The CW and Warner Bros.
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