Sophia Bush Talks Partners, Dating and Chick-Fil-A: "It's Not About Chicken"

Former One Tree Hill star sounds off on gay rights and tabloid rumors

By John Boone Aug 11, 2012 2:00 PMTags
Sophia Bush Norman Scott/startraksphoto.com

Sophia Bush has a lot to say about a lot of different things. And you'll want to listen.

We caught up with the former One Tree Hill and future Partners star at last night's Elle magazine-sponsored Songbirds Miss Me album release soiree and chatted about everything from her upcoming sitcom (which debuts on CBS this fall) to gay rights.

"Oh my god, it's the dream! I wake up every day and pinch myself," Sophia gushed about her new acting gig, which has her playing the fiancée of one man while balancing the bromance he has with his gay BFF (Michael Urie). "I can't believe this is my life."

"She's a real girl, she's not like this ludicrous ideal of perfection or some annoying nagging shrew like so often women get written," Sophia explained about her character, Ali. "She's creative and spontaneous and a little bit neurotic. She's like us, she's confident one day and feels awesome and is like, 'I'm on top of everything and I'm a business woman and I have my s--t together,' and the next day is like 'I don't know what I'm doing with my life!'"

Surely this role will require less crying (and catfighting and attending funerals and all sorts of other totally downer dramatic fare) than her nine season run on OTH.

"This is a whole different world, doing a multi-camera show, it's like doing a stage play," she continued about how shooting the shows differ. "We're rehearsing every day and running around with the director with scripts in hand...We're literally performing our episode every week. It's really exciting and it breathes a whole new life and a new energy into all of it."

While Sophia may be romancing on the small screen, she's content with living single (after splitting with boyfriend Austin Nichols after six years) in real life:

"For almost a year now, being on my own has been amazing…I'm such a sucker for love and I believe in it and I always want it to win," Sophia told us. "I don't think you can really, truly be the partner you want to be until you know on an absolute level that you are a complete person on your own."

Not that the tabloids haven't tried to link Sophia with some Hollywood hunk or another (most recently, she was spotted with That '70s Show star Topher Grace, instantly sparking rumors of romance).

"It's really annoying," Sophia admitted. "Especially when you're not a person who's running around dating everybody—if you are, by the way, good for you…But there's this weird assumption that any time people who have opposite body parts are hanging out, they're having sex. And it's like, first of all. No, it takes an awfully long time to get the key to the castle, thank you very much. And second of all, why can't I just have friends?!"

One thing that Sophia is very outspoken on is equal rights, which naturally spurred the conversation of Chick-Fil-A, which has been the epicenter for the gay rights debate after company president Dan Cathy declared his opposition to marriage equality.

"Here's my issue: It shocks me how many people come to their defense, first of all. I'm sorry, it's 2012, if you really think it's OK to deny anybody their basic human right of loving who they choose to love, you can go f--k yourself, honestly. And you can print that, because I'm done. I am so over it!" Sophia started.

"Be a kind person...The reason I take issue with it is, especially in America, we are told that this is the place—give us your tired, give us your hungry, give us your poor—where anybody of any race, of any belief system, can come and have a shot at the American Dream. Have a shot at equality. Oh wait, unless your skin is a certain color, unless you have a certain sexual preference. That's not what it says on the Statue of Liberty. We are all supposed to be equal here."

She continued, "When you use God as an excuse to hate people and you use God as an excuse to cut people down, first of all, I think it's insulting to God. And second of all, you're missing the point. Because we're not talking about chicken. We're talking about the fact that every kid who reads that article, every kid who hears that said, every kid who sees a bunch of people wearing confederate flags and 'God Hates F-gs' T-shirts, showing up at Chick-Fil-A and eating chicken nuggets, you're telling those kids that they don't matter. And that they're less important than other kids in this country."

"My God loves everybody, and if yours doesn't, that's your prerogative, but don't tell me how to live my life and don't tell my best friends that you're going to take away their rights," Sophia concluded. "Because I will march you into the ground. I will argue you into the ground. I will petition you into the ground. I will not sleep, I will not stop, and neither will so many people in this country and in this world. It's not right."