Sophia Bush opened up about her sexuality in an April 2024 essay for Glamour, but she recently revealed that a friend's comment helped change the way she thought about her sexuality. Sophia, 42, married Grant Hughes in 2022, but then filed for divorce in August 2023. In the essay, Sophia wrote about her ex-husband's "lovely tribute to our first anniversary on Instagram." She knew that people expected her to be happy to celebrate the occasion — and she looked happy too. But in reality, she "felt nothing."
She crafted her own romantic post for their anniversary as well but "walked into the bathroom and threw up" after posting it, she revealed in the essay. Now, the actress has revealed that she previously identified as bisexual, but comments from friends made her feel like she couldn't embrace that aspect of her identity.
The friends she spoke of on the June 27, 2024, episode of her podcast Work in Progress probably didn't have bad intentions, she said, but they made her feel like she couldn't be bisexual because she "mostly dated men."
Sophia previously identified as bisexual until age 25, but at some point, she felt like she wasn't queer enough.
After getting married in 2022, Sophia realized she "absolutely had made a mistake." She tried to tell herself that "relationships are hard. Marriage takes compromise" and "maybe this was the feeling you get when you settle down later in life and have to make space for another person," she wrote in her essay.
But after her marriage ended and she came out as queer in 2024, she "finally [felt] like [she could] breathe."
"It is so, so scary to do the brave thing, to say, 'I’m just not happy,'" she wrote at the time. "Especially if you’re in a partnership and you have to say it first. But if you do it, you get the chance to be happy."
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Although some of her friends initially made her feel like she was not queer enough, she explained on her podcast that a comment one of her friends later made something click for her after her relationship ended.
"After my last breakup, one of my best friends looked at me and was like, 'I got to say, that was just painful to watch, and I’m so glad you’re getting out of it,'" Sophia said on the podcast.
She said her friend continued with, "'But, like, I don’t just think — he was not the right person for you — but also, I don’t actually think you like men.'"
On Sophia's birthday on July 8, her current girlfriend, former soccer player Ashlyn Harris, posted a tribute to Sophia on Instagram. "You are such a gift in this world. To see you shine and happy fills us all up," Ashlyn wrote. "I love your heart Soph… I love everything about you."
In her "coming out" essay, Sophia wrote that in 2023, when she was turning 41, she felt like she was celebrating her "first birthday."
Commenting on Ashlyn's birthday post this year, Sophia wrote, "Last year I got free. This year I found the very best love in the very most unexpected place. I may never get over the gift of it."
"Thank you for putting me back together. For making my second birthday even better than my first," Sophia continued in her message for Ashlyn. "And for reminding me what the sound of my unbridled laughter sounds like."
