Sophia Bush candidly discloses the truth about her "One Tree Hill" salary, revealing that she was underpaid compared to many of her costars during her nine-season tenure on the beloved teen drama. The 43-year-old actress, who made her mark on the WB series that later moved to The CW from 2003 to 2012, shared her experiences during a recent Tech Futures panel.
"Everybody had their own journey," Sophia explained, noting that Hilarie Burton was an MTV VJ and Bethany Joy Lenz had appeared on soap operas before the show. She, on the other hand, "had been the philanthropy chair of my sorority at USC." The disparity in pay was "wild," she added.
When asked about her earnings per episode after deducting various fees and expenses, Sophia revealed, "Once I paid 10 percent to my managers, 10 percent to my agents, 5 percent to my lawyers, a publicist fee, my taxes, and the $3,000-a-month that my two-bedroom apartment in Wilmington cost me, I was taking home about $3,000 per episode."
Moreover, Sophia lamented that she is still not seeing much in residuals from the series, which is now streaming on platforms such as Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max. "What you really hope works for you in TV—even if you're not making a lot of money at the time—is, 'Well, we'll get syndicated and we'll get residuals,'" she explained to Network & Chill podcast host Vivian Tu. "Except when we signed to do that wonderful show that we all loved...there was no streaming."
The "Chicago Fire" alum continued, "Our show is syndicated on streaming, which means the studio that owns the show makes all the residuals and we don't." Despite this setback, Sophia's acting rate has increased over time. However, she noted that it took her quite some time to negotiate a higher pay. "It took me 20 years in this industry," she added. "Year 20 was the first time I got paid equally to my male costars."
