Sophia Bush’s Best Quotes About Love and Marriage Ahead of Grant Hughes Engagement

Credit: MediaPunch/Shutterstock

Sophia Bush’s Best Quotes About Love and Marriage Ahead of Grant Hughes Engagement

Love comes in all different shapes and sizes. Sophia Bush never gave up on finding her forever romance — ahead of getting engaged to Grant Hughes in August 2021. The One Tree Hill alum, who was married to costar Chad Michael Murray for five months before splitting in September 2005, has been vocal over the years about self-love, being happy alone and waiting for The One. In August 2012, Bush explained why fairytales aren’t always the greatest guides to finding everlasting love. "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. I think that's something all women deserve to know," the Hard Luck Love Song actress told reporters while attending the Songbirds’ Miss Me album release party. "So many fairytales we read as children — and the love stories we watch on TV when we're older — tell us that we're not enough unless we have a man. And it's like, 'No, homie! You can be a bonus when I have time for you in my life.'" The False Positive star — who dated OTH costars James Lafferty and Austin Nichols and Chicago P.D.’s Jesse Lee Soffer before going public with Hughes in May 2020 — admitted two years later that you have to date a couple of duds before finding a good one. "I've dated a couple of the wrong guys, but I've also had great love in my life," Bush told The Chicago Sun-Times' Splash magazine in January 2014. "I think every woman on Earth has dated the wrong guy at some point." [jwplayer Afu3CVkz-l3ahXupL] Three years later, the Partners alum spoke out about her failed marriage to Murray, penning a letter for Cosmopolitan. “I refuse to let that one relationship define me, which is why I’ve done my best to avoid discussing it for 10 years,” she wrote in February 2017. “The reality is that, yes, it was a massive event in my life. And the trauma of it was amplified by how public it became, which was incredibly foreign and bizarre to a girl who’d been just another college kid 24 months before her life blew up.” While Bush has remained quiet for the most part regarding her and the Cinderella Story actor’s split, she has opened up about staying close with most of her other exes. “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 said on the “Unqualified” podcast in December 2018. The Hitcher actress noted that whether she has a man by her side or not, she’s set in the partner department thanks to her circle of friends. “I have companionship because I have the most tremendous community,” she added. “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.” Scroll down to relive Bush’s most honest quotes about love and marriage over the years: [podcast_block]

Credit: MediaPunch/Shutterstock

Sophia Bush’s Best Quotes About Love and Marriage Ahead of Grant Hughes Engagement

Love comes in all different shapes and sizes. Sophia Bush never gave up on finding her forever romance — ahead of getting engaged to Grant Hughes in August 2021. The One Tree Hill alum, who was married to costar Chad Michael Murray for five months before splitting in September 2005, has been vocal over the years about self-love, being happy alone and waiting for The One. In August 2012, Bush explained why fairytales aren’t always the greatest guides to finding everlasting love. "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. I think that's something all women deserve to know," the Hard Luck Love Song actress told reporters while attending the Songbirds’ Miss Me album release party. "So many fairytales we read as children — and the love stories we watch on TV when we're older — tell us that we're not enough unless we have a man. And it's like, 'No, homie! You can be a bonus when I have time for you in my life.'" The False Positive star — who dated OTH costars James Lafferty and Austin Nichols and Chicago P.D.’s Jesse Lee Soffer before going public with Hughes in May 2020 — admitted two years later that you have to date a couple of duds before finding a good one. "I've dated a couple of the wrong guys, but I've also had great love in my life," Bush told The Chicago Sun-Times' Splash magazine in January 2014. "I think every woman on Earth has dated the wrong guy at some point." [jwplayer Afu3CVkz-l3ahXupL] Three years later, the Partners alum spoke out about her failed marriage to Murray, penning a letter for Cosmopolitan. “I refuse to let that one relationship define me, which is why I’ve done my best to avoid discussing it for 10 years,” she wrote in February 2017. “The reality is that, yes, it was a massive event in my life. And the trauma of it was amplified by how public it became, which was incredibly foreign and bizarre to a girl who’d been just another college kid 24 months before her life blew up.” While Bush has remained quiet for the most part regarding her and the Cinderella Story actor’s split, she has opened up about staying close with most of her other exes. “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 said on the “Unqualified” podcast in December 2018. The Hitcher actress noted that whether she has a man by her side or not, she’s set in the partner department thanks to her circle of friends. “I have companionship because I have the most tremendous community,” she added. “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.” Scroll down to relive Bush’s most honest quotes about love and marriage over the years: [podcast_block]

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Sucker for Love

"Being on my own has been amazing," Bush told reporters in August 2012, six months after Us Weekly broke the news of her split from Nichols. "I don't know if it's coming into my thirties or what it is, but I'm such a sucker for love and I believe in it and I always want it to win. By nature, I think as women we are nurturers, we're caretakers, and me in particular. … I want to take care of everybody else. And to have spent so long now just taking care of myself and my girlfriends and enjoying that, it's so good. I think it's so important."

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Not All Love Lasts

The John Tucker Must Die actress reflected on her brief marriage to Murray in a letter for Cosmopolitan’s February 2017 issue, noting every relationship teaches you something. “Some are meant to heal you, some are meant to teach you how to build yourself up and some are meant to show you how to trust your own intuition,” she explained. “Not every love can last forever. When you take the pressure of The One off, you’ll open yourself up to endless possibilities. You’ll learn to have a truly deep, knowing relationship with yourself first. Then the rest will fall into place.”

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Settling for Less

“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 said during a December 2018 episode of Anna Faris’ “Unqualified” podcast. “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 [the] time that I was born, and the guys just haven’t caught up? I don’t know.”

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Deserving of Love

The Chicago P.D. alum revealed during her December 2018 “Unqualified” podcast appearance that self-love is key to a successful relationship. “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 explained. “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.”

She continued: “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.’”

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Build Your Own Castle

Bush told Faris in December 2018 that she’s close with many of her exes but has learned with every breakup what she is looking for in a partner. “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,’” the California native said. “And like, [I said], ‘Yeah, I built my own castle. I’m good. I don’t need you for anything so you better be a value add.’”

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No A--holes Allowed

“I’m not attracted to a--holes. I think that in the same way that I’ve lacked some confidence on the individual side, I've lacked a bit of discernment or perhaps having a bulls--t meter in my personal meter,” the actress said on an August 2021 episode of the “Inside of You” podcast. “I've dated some people who I’ve thought are very nice but are not. That’s a lesson you’ve gotta learn. I'm attracted to creativity, to ambition, to intellect, to service."

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Open to Marriage

The Girl Named C producer revealed during her August 2021 “Inside of You” podcast appearance that despite having a failed marriage with Murray, she “largely” feels “great” about getting married again.

"I think it depends on what people's motivations are and I want to make sure — whether it's myself or one of my best friends — that we're clear on what it is we're signing up for rather than thinking we're getting some Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey rom-com life,” the Incredibles 2 actress said during the episode, which dropped hours before she revealed her engagement news via Instagram. “You know, this notion that you're going to meet your person and they're going to make you so happy that you're going to be fulfilled and you'll never be nervous again and you'll never ever think anyone else is hot? Like, what? It's such an absurd joke."

Credit: Courtesy Grant Huges/Instagram

Looking for Intimacy and Honesty

Bush shared her thoughts on her perfect mate while chatting with Michael Rosenbaum. "What I am a fan of, what I am a believer in is real partnership, real intimacy that comes with radical honesty,” she said. “And with ground rules of always giving your partner the benefit of the doubt while asking questions, while being able to be vulnerable, admit when you're afraid, admit when you're being triggered by something else, like, you have to do a lot of work.”

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Past Engagements

One day before sharing her Italian proposal with fans in August 2021, Bush got real about her and fellow “Drama Queens” podcast cohosts Bethany Joy Lenz and Hilarie Burton’s failed engagements on their show.

"Sometimes you should listen when people tell you to be careful and you're young and you don't know what you're doing in relationships," Bush said on the podcast. Lenz added: "For all of my major relationships, I had people tell me 'red flag,' 'I'm concerned,' 'Are you sure?' I was just so stubborn and determined that I knew what I was doing. It's hard to listen to.”

The Love, Victor star agreed, saying, "Same. My face is very hot. Yep. What's interesting about it is that in a way, I think about it in particular for the three of us going through those real-life trials and tribulations together while selling a fairy tale on screen. ... We've all been asked big questions by men we decided were not our people."

Bush continued: "In the future, I think maybe we should just buy jewelry for each other and be a little more picky with men. That would be my recommendation to all the young women listening. Give jewelry to your friends and be patient."

Credit: Courtesy Sophia Bush/Instagram

Toasting the Future

“This. This place. The land of my past. Of my heritage. Of my mother, and hers, and hers before. Of Mario and his oxen. Basil grown in the garden. Wine made in the basement,” Bush wrote via Instagram in August 2021 alongside a photo from her engagement to Hughes. “Comes my future. Him. Wine is our passion. We raise bees at home. We grow basil too. And now, tomatoes from Luca, Italy. In Los Angeles.”

She gushed over her new fiancé and how his proposal in Italy will forever link them to their heritage in the old country. “Our families’ pasts, overlap with our present. We see a future on the horizon. We choose it. Them, eventually. Ours,” the star continued. “This day. Forever. I’m beaming. I never knew. Now I do. I know. This. You.”

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Shifting Her Perspective

"It is not, as a partner, my job or your job to help another person realize their potential," the start explained on a June 2022 episode of the "Drama Queens" podcast. "You can support someone in realizing their potential — you can't make them do it."

She continued, "When I shifted the place that I pick from or that I was willing to see potential from to being not sympathetic but inspired, I went 'Oh, oh!' And it's not lost on me nor any of my friends that the person that I went 'Oh!' about, I'd known for 10 years."

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Finding Love Later

"I hate that the world has made us think that as we get older we're stuck in our ways or it gets harder to find our person," she said in a June 2022 episode of her One Tree Hill rewatch podcast. "I just think you get smarter and you know yourself better and you have the capability to shift the place you choose from in a way now [that you didn't have in years prior]."