Sophia Bush: Ive always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum
In July 2022, Sophia Bush married Grant Hughes in Tulsa, with a wedding that showcased Tulsa’s rich and complex history. Thirteen months later, Sophia filed for divorce. It felt like something big happened behind the scenes, and soon enough, we learned what happened. Sophia left her husband for a married woman – soccer star Ashlyn Harris. Ashlyn filed for divorce from Ali Krieger in September 2023, just a month after Sophia left Grant Hughes. The lesbian community and the women’s soccer community were torn up about all of this drama. While Sophia tried to put a bow on it – while also claiming that she and Ashlyn did nothing wrong – there was definitely a lot going on behind the scenes. So, treat this like Sophia’s second attempt to reframe what happened and perhaps tell her side of things. She covers the latest issue of Glamour and this is her big coming out.
Her wedding & first anniversary with Grant Hughes: “In April of 2022 I was close to calling off my wedding. Instead of running away, I doubled down on being a model wife. In 2023 my now ex-husband posted a lovely tribute to our first anniversary on Instagram. When I saw it, I felt the blood drain from my face. Fans and friends were telling me how exciting this milestone was and how happy I looked. I felt nothing. Things hadn’t been easy at home, but everyone says marriage is hard, right?
She really didn’t want to marry that guy: “Maybe it’s just cold feet, I told myself. Maybe I was too sensitive. Maybe this was the feeling you get when you settle down later in life and have to make space for another person. There have been moments in my life when it feels like the universe is screaming at me to pay attention. This was one of them, but I didn’t listen. I kept repeating the adages we all know so well: Relationships are hard. Marriage takes compromise. You know the rest. And so I got married. We threw one of the greatest wedding weekends ever. We had an amazing time with our closest friends and family. It was truly one of the best parties I’ve ever been to, and we raised a ton of money for charity. I don’t regret any of that.”
On experiencing fertility difficulties: “But after the wedding I found myself in the depths and heartbreak of the fertility process, which was the most clarifying experience of my life. It feels like society is finally making space for brutally honest conversations about how hard and painful any fertility journey is, but I kept mine private. I was trying to get through months of endless ultrasounds, hormone shots, so many blood draws that I have scar tissue in my veins, and retrieval after retrieval, while simultaneously realizing the person I had chosen to be my partner didn’t necessarily speak the same emotional language I did.”
When she knew she made a mistake: “As I lost track of how many examination tables I had lain on alone, I felt something in me seismically shift. Six months into that journey, I think I knew deep down that I absolutely had made a mistake. It would take my head and heart a while longer to understand what my bones already knew.
On falling in love with Ashlyn Harris: “I didn’t expect to find love in this support system. I don’t know how else to say it other than: I didn’t see it until I saw it. And I think it’s very easy not to see something that’s been in front of your face for a long time when you’d never looked at it as an option and you had never been looked at as an option. What I saw was a friend with her big, happy life. And now I know she thought the same thing about me.”
On being judged for her relationship with Ashlyn Harris: “People looking in from the outside weren’t privy to just how much time it took, how many painful conversations were had. A lot of effort was made to be graceful with other people’s processing, their time and obligations, and their feelings. 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. 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!).”
Coming out: “I sort of hate the notion of having to come out in 2024. But I’m deeply aware that we are having this conversation in a year when we’re seeing the most aggressive attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community in modern history. There were more than 500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills proposed in state legislatures in 2023, so for that reason I want to give the act of coming out the respect and honor it deserves. I’ve experienced so much safety, respect, and love in the queer community, as an ally all of my life, that, 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. 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.
She has a lot of smoke for “internet trolls” who accused her of homewrecking Ashlyn and Ali’s marriage, but she takes pains to say that Ali and Ashlyn were already separated when she and Ashlyn started seeing each other romantically. I still think the way everything went down was messy as hell, but I also think that Sophia became the face of it because she is the most famous one in the group. But she fell hard for Ashlyn and she had that moment of “I just know,” a moment she never had with the man she married. Oh well, life is complicated and from the sound of things, Ali is fine and feeling “free” post-divorce. All’s well that ends well.
Photos courtesy of Lauren Dukoff/Glamour, shared via Glamour’s promotional email.
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