Getting real. Sophia Bush joined Anna Faris’ “Unqualified” podcast to talk all things women empowerment and relationships from the past. The actress, who’s set to star in CBS’ upcoming drama Surveillance, opened up about her past romances and what she’s learned over the years.
“When I look back at the way I have operated – also by the way as a serial monogamist for a long time, and stuck in relationships that were not good for me – I now look back and go, ‘Oh, it’s not my fault, it’s not their fault.’ Even the guys who f–ked up so bad—and I’ve had a handful,” Bush, 36, revealed to Faris in the interview published on Tuesday, December 4. “What I realize is that I have to own my role in it, because more often than not, I have chosen to date the potential I see in someone and not who somebody is in this current moment. And that’s not to throw shade at anybody. That’s simply to say, I settled for less, and maybe that’s because I came into the world like a little Ruth Bader Ginsburg and was like an old woman from time that I was born, and the guys just haven’t caught up? I don’t know.”
The Chicago P.D. alum, who was briefly married to her former One Tree Hill costar Chad Michael Murray and has been in multiple public relationships since, has been single for years now.
“When I got off a rollercoaster in my last relationship with a person who I love but who like, the relationship was so bad for me, I finally went, ‘Enough! Just enough! I’m good, I’m done,'” the actress said. “I have companionship because I have the most tremendous community. My friends are so special and amazing, they are like ride-or-die, travel the world, show up at 2 a.m., like, good humans.”
She added: “I realized that if I wasn’t as patient with myself or as loving to myself as I’ve been with partners who just didn’t, at the end of the day, deserve it. Again, that’s not a hateful thing, it’s just to say like, ‘You don’t deserve this piece of me.’ That’s OK, I f–ked up giving it to you when you didn’t deserve it and I gotta own that I don’t deserve to treat myself that way either. Now for the last couple of years, I’ve gone on some dates. There have been two or three lovely dudes who I’ve seen for a moment and then have gone, ‘You’re great, but you’re not my guy.’”
In the past, she’s dated Chicago P.D.’s Jesse Lee Soffer and former One Tree Hill star Austin Nichols, the latter who she revealed she’s actually still close with.
“It’s really nice that the majority of my long-term serial monogamist relationships, these two and three-year beautiful learning experiences that I’ve had, we’re all friends,” the activist revealed. “My ex that I went with dressed as Katy [Perry] and Russell [Brand], we saw each other three weeks ago for lunch. We love each other!”
However, she now knows what she’s looking for and will not settle.
“I’m so unwilling to offer any of my limited free time to any man who isn’t, like, the man. My girlfriend said this to me, ‘No more princes. A man shows up as a king for you or nothing,’” Bush said. “And like, yeah, I built my own castle. I’m good. I don’t need you for anything so you better be a value add.”
With that, Faris added, “Build your own ladder, I’m not growing my hair out.”
