Actress Sophia Bush is defending her statement promoting divorce to trade up to newer and better spouses, telling critics, “You hate a woman with agency.”
On Wednesday, Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper discussed Bush’s decisions to divorce two men before marrying women’s soccer star Ashlyn Harris, remarking that if a woman is questioning whether she can improve her life by leaving her marriage, “The answer is always yes.”
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“This idea that it’s too late or you’re too old, or who are you to want more, that’s patriarchy,” the One Tree Hill star added. “That is crazy. We don’t need it.”
Bush faced heavy backlash for her remarks, with one social media user calling it “disgusting” and “hoe advice.”
“What’s actually crazy is getting married and taking a ‘for life’ vow and not even pretending that you were planning on honoring that,” another wrote.
“And men can get better wives,” a third declared. “But always seeking something better is how you miss out on what you have.”
“Marriage is not a lifelong search for the best available partner. It is a commitment to building a loving relationship with the person you have chosen,” another asserted.
“One of the women in this conversation has been run through by half of Hollywood, blown 2 marriages in less than 12 months, and is now married to a woman,” another said, in reference to Bush. “Imagine nuking your entire family’s lives over someone like that’s advice.”
“Sophia Bush is on her third marriage. The first one lasted 5 months. The second one 13 months. Not exactly a relationship expert,” another X user echoed.
“My greatest fear about marriage is that I’ll be working long long days and she’ll just be at home marinating her brain in this stuff,” another commented.
“Nothing says ‘I have my cake and I’m eating it too’ quite like detonating a functional marriage, upending your kids’ lives, and entering the post-35 dating market on the advice of multi-millionaire podcast hosts and actresses who face zero consequences for the toxic bile they spout,” another wrote.
“There is a special place in hell for the women who get obscenely rich telling other women the most catastrophically self-destructive advice imaginable under the guise of female empowerment,” the X user added.
On Friday, Bush responded to the backlash by taking to X to claim that her critics are all “trolls” pouncing on “ragebait”
“The manosphere is big mad over something one of their minions claims I said on CHD,” the Grey’s Anatomy actress wrote. “But their rage-bait quote isn’t something I said. Nor did Alex. You’re really telling on yourselves and how much you hate a woman with agency.”
Bush did not explain how the clip — or the caption on the post sharing it — were out of context or misinterpreted. A Community Note on X affirms that the impression of virtually everyone who reacted to the clip was in accordance with the actual transcript.
“You are allowed to outgrow your life,” Bush continued. “You are allowed to be unhappy and make a change. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO GET WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU WANTED AND REALIZE YOU DON’T.”
“Adjust accordingly. You are a human being, not a checklist,” she added, before claiming, “A whole movement of trolls that want you submissive and small and miserable.”
Bush went in to insist, “Those people don’t care about you, they just want you to fall in line.”
“If they want to chatter so incessantly about someone they claim you should never listen to anyway? It’s because they’re afraid of the point. Seems they’re up in arms that the truth could illuminate something for you that they don’t like,” the Chicago P.D. actress continued.
Bush concluded her rant by claiming that her critics are engaging in “such embarrassing beta behavior.”
“Yikes,” the actress wrote.
Alana Mastrangelo-Wrask is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
