Sophia Bush has come out as queer in an article she wrote herself and explains the story behind her divorce.

In 2023, the actress’s personal life was in the spotlight after she divorced her husband Grant Hughes, with whom she was married for a year, and a few months later, a relationship with a woman, former US soccer player Ashlyn Harris, was announced.

Writing a personal essay for Shine magazine, the 41-year-old OneTreeHill The actress explained the story behind her divorce and her journey to coming out as queer.

“I hate the idea come out in 2024,” she wrote. “I think I’ve always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum. Right now, I think the word that best describes it is gay. I can’t really say it without smiling. And that feels pretty good.”

Bush said she experienced emotional and physical turmoil when she realized her marriage to Hughes was falling apart.

The Chicago Police The actress said she was close to canceling her April 2022 wedding but then decided to stay in the relationship and “double her role as a model wife.”

“I kept repeating the adages we all know so well: Relationships are hard. Marriage requires compromise. You know the rest. And so I got married. We had one of the greatest wedding weekends ever… I don’t regret any of it.”

Bush said she went through a grueling fertility journey after struggling to conceive and lost track of how many examination tables she lay on during the process.

At this point, she wrote, she realized that her marriage had been the wrong decision.

“I felt something seismic shift inside me. After six months of this (fertility) journey, I knew deep down that I had definitely made a mistake. It took my head and heart a while to understand what my bones already knew.”

Bush explained that the state of her marriage was the reason she took the opportunity to move from her US home to London to 2:22 A ghost story in summer 2023.

“I had to get out of our house. I had to get on stage,” she wrote.

Although she enjoyed “every second” of the performance, she fell ill when half the cast contracted Covid-19 and she suffered a serious health emergency while battling for recovery.

“I spent several nights in hospital, was pumped full of endless amounts of fluids, I underwent cardiac examinations and organ monitoring. It was clear that my body screaming and I had to listen.”

Bush said when she retired from the show, she knew her marriage was over and “everything fell apart at once.”

Throughout the separation, she said she surrounded herself with a support network of women, but did not expect to find love with her friend, soccer player Harris, whom she met in 2019.

“I didn’t expect to find love in this support system,” Bush wrote. “I don’t know how to say it other than, I didn’t see it until I saw it.”

“It really took other people in our safe support bubble to point out to me how we finished each other’s sentences or were deeply touched by the same things.”

Eventually, Bush plucked up the courage to ask Harris to meet face-to-face to discuss her feelings. The four-hour dinner they had afterwards was “one of the most surreal experiences of my life so far.”

However, Bush said that in the days when she was coming to terms with her sexuality, vicious rumors began to circulate about her divorce and her relationship with Harris.

“It felt like it was only seconds after I realized what was in front of me that the rumor mill on the internet started spewing in the ugliest way possible. There were blatant lies. Violent threats.”

Bush said the idea that she left her marriage because of a “hysterical rendezvous” was false.

“Those who said I left my ex because I suddenly realized I wanted to be with women – my partners have always known what I’m into (so that’s not it guys, sorry!).”

Bush said she feels “at home” in the queer community.

“I am deeply aware that we are having this conversation in a year in which we have seen the most aggressive attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community in modern history,” she said.

“In 2023, more than 500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures. That’s why I want to give coming out the respect and honor it deserves.”

“I have experienced so much safety, respect and love in the queer community as an ally throughout my life that when I found myself, I already felt like it was my home.”