Sophia Bush crushed Hilarie Burton's dream of dating Austin Nichols

Hilarie Burton Morgan thought she might spark up a romance with her One Tree Hill Co-star Austin Nichols – until Sophia Bush walked into the room.

Burton Morgan, 41, opened up about spending time with Nichols, 43, after joining the cast of season 6 OTH during the Monday February 5 episode of her “Drama queenpodcast. Burton Morgan made it clear that she had “no idea” he dated Bush before his time on the show and recalled wanting to take her friendship with Nichols to the next level as they painted their faces before their wrestling match attending a mutual friend.

“My face is completely painted like a sabre-tooth tiger and I'm thinking, 'Are we going to kiss? Our faces are so close, we're not going to kiss! We are just friends.' And later I think, 'We're going to kiss all this makeup off,'” she said. “We roll three times deep in face paint to the local armory, which is a very rough scene, to advocate for [our friend]. And I'm having the time of my life. And I know it's not a date, but this guy let me paint his face, this is fun.

The “fun” stopped, however, when Bush, 41, entered moments later. “Suddenly Austin looks very distracted, like he's looking over my shoulder. And I thought, 'Oh, what is he looking at?' I turn around and Sophia has entered the armory in a cashmere turtleneck and a tweed blazer,” she said, joking that her ethereal friend looked as if “sunbeams were shining on her shiny hair” as Gary Wrights 'Dream Weaver' played in the background.

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“And I see heart emojis in Austin's eyes and I just turn around and I can still feel it in my bones: 'Oh, no!' I had so seriously misjudged that situation,” Burton Morgan continued. “And so I had to sit there for another hour with face paint and know that I was a king goober.”

While Nichols initially joined OTH as Burton Morgan's on-screen love interest, he and Bush had an on-and-off romance for years before he was cast. Bush revealed during an October 2023 episode of 'Drama Queens' that Nichols was her first date following her public split from her other co-star. Chad Michael Murray – and that he auditioned for his role on the show after Bush claimed long distance was “too hard” to maintain.

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After seeing Nichols' devotion to Bush, Burton Morgan knew their chance for romance was over before it even began.

“I was such an awkward single person that I have that memory of, 'It's not going to happen,'” Burton Morgan explained of Nichols' polite refusal. “I felt like every girl in every '90s rom-com who thinks they're going to the party and everything will be fine. And that didn't happen. In such a grand way. I knew at that moment it was going to be a good story.

Bush and Nichols' respective characters, Brooke and Julian, eventually sparked their own romance on the CW series, later walking down the aisle in season 8. Off-screen, the pair continued dating until they called it quits for good in February 2012 stopped for just a few months. before the final episode of OTH broadcast. Despite their real-life divorce, the exes remained friendly.

Burton Morgan got married in the meantime Jeffrey Dean Morgan in October 2019, and the couple shares son Gus, 13, and daughter George, 5. As for her and Nichols, the duo became close friends over time. According to Burton Morgan, Nichols took time to connect with her and the people she cared about after she moved OTHs recording location Wilmington, North Carolina, which helped deepen their bond.

“I've really enjoyed getting to know Austin all these years at this point. He's a great actor. He’s really fun,” she explained during the Jan. 29 episode of “Drama Queens.” “We hung out a lot after work, and he really made a point of making friends with my friends in town. And I appreciated that. He appreciated them. I really respected that about him.”