Sophia Bush has offered rare insight over the years into her difficult experience on the set of Chicago P.D. — including the alleged abuse that led to her shocking exit.
Bush played detective Erin Lindsay on four seasons of the Chicago Fire spinoff before her surprise decision to depart in 2017. She later hinted at a toxic set and abusive behavior from a costar, whom she didn’t name.
“I don’t have to give everyone the specific breakdown of exactly why I left until I’m ready to do that. But, the overarching theme for me was that I landed my dream job. I landed this job that, since I was 20 years old and trying to become an actor, I said I wanted. And aspects of it, don’t get me wrong, were wonderful,” she said on Refinery 29’s “UnStyled” podcast in 2017. “It was then that I realized I’d been drowning. It was then that I knew just how miserable I was going to work every day.”
She continued: “What you start to realize is that like if your house was burning down, you wouldn’t hang out inside because your brother was in there and you loved him. You’d be like, ‘Yo, I love you. Let’s get out of this house!’ For me, not to put it on anybody else, but for me it felt like I was trapped in a burning building. I was just so unhappy and it was my dream job and I was miserable and I had to go.”
After Bush’s exit, news later broke that her costar Jason Beghe was previously investigated by NBC for volatile behavior and offensive comments.
“I am deeply sorry for my behavior, which I know has been hurtful to my friends and colleagues,” he said in a statement. “I have struggled with anger issues for some time, and over the past year, I have been working with a coach to help me learn how to mitigate my temper. It’s an ongoing process, and it has been a humbling one. It is a source of great pride for me to be part of Chicago P.D.’s incredible cast and crew. I have personally apologized to anyone who I have upset, and I am committed to doing what is necessary to make up any damage that I may have caused.”
The actress went on to share details about her experience on the show in her new memoir, And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes From a Life in Progress. While Bush has elaborated more about what transpired behind the scenes — but has still chosen not to reveal all the details.
“There are 200 people that I care very much about, whose jobs are the lifeline for their families. It’s not my place to choose when to speak for other people who aren’t ready and might not ever be,” she told Variety in October 2026 about which parts of her story she wrote about in her memoir. “That’s part of the reason it took us so long after Wilmington. It takes people a lot of time, and I think that’s okay. I think this reaction that women aren’t allowed to speak after a certain amount of time is so strange.
Bush hinted that her memoir had “an investigative reporting version” about her time on Chicago P.D., explaining to Entertainment Weekly, “What I realized was the most important thing I could offer anyone was how I processed something for myself, how I actually came to terms with admitting how deep that imprint went — that was actually the worst one of my life for me.”
The actress didn’t mind potential backlash from holding back on the page.
“I think that people will, maybe, say, ‘That’s not enough, put it on the page.’ The sort of black and whiting of internet opinions versus the complexity of a life, I had to figure out how to divest from. I have the other stuff, but I didn’t need to put it out there,” she continued. “What felt more important to me was to really clarify that for some reason we blame women for the way men treat them and how alarming it was for me to be told you can’t have had an issue with two men because people will say that it’s your fault.”
Keep scrolling for the biggest revelations from Bush about her time on Chicago P.D. — and the aftermath of her exit:
Breaking Down the Timeline
“When I sat my bosses down — it was in the summer between seasons 3 and 4 — and I said, ‘Here’s where we are. Here’s everything you’re aware of. Here’s how I’m coming to you today. If something really drastic doesn’t change, I’m leaving at the end of the year,'” she recalled on a 2017 episode of Refinery 29’s “UnStyled” podcast. “Because I understand how the business works and how women are treated — I said, ‘I’m giving you not two weeks notice and I’m not coming in here throwing s*** and breaking lamps and saying I’m never coming back. I’m giving you 23 episodes notice. I’m giving you that much time.”
Bush said it was hard for her to see the fan reaction when she left the show, adding, “I had to respect myself in a situation where I didn’t feel respected.”
Addressing Jason Beghe’s Statement
After Beghe spoke out about his investigation, Bush appeared to respond with a cryptic 2018 Instagram post, which read, “ALSO. Repeat sexual abusers having their gross physical misconduct rebranded as ‘anger management issues. I’m flabbergasted, really.”
Offering More Details
Bush opened up on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast about her decision to quit Chicago P.D. after realizing it was affecting her health.
“I realized that as I was thinking I was being the tough guy, doing the thing, showing up to work, I programmed myself to tolerate the intolerable,” she stated in the 2018 episode. “I quit because, what I’ve learned is I’ve been so programmed to be a good girl and to be a work horse and be a tug boat that I have always prioritized tugging the ship for the crew, for the show, for the group, ahead of my own health … My body was, like, falling apart, because I was really, really unhappy.”
Bush continued: “I internalized and sort of like, inhabited that role of ‘pull the tug boat’ to the point where just because I’m unhappy or I’m being mistreated or I’m being abused at work, I’m not gonna f*** up this job for all these people and what about the camera guy whose two daughters I love and this is how he pays their rent? It becomes such a big thing. When your bosses tell you that if you raise a ruckus, you’ll cost everyone their job, you believe them.”
Despite efforts to try to stay, the actress ultimately realized it wasn’t possible.
“Nearing my tenure there, I was probably difficult to be around because I was in so much pain and I felt so ignored,” she shared before elaborating on how she felt toward a coworker. “I feel like I was standing butt naked, bruised and bleeding in the middle of Times Square, screaming at the top of my lungs and not a single person stopped to ask if they could help me.”
Initial Signs of Issues
According to Bush’s 2026 memoir, she experienced a lot of abusive behavior behind the scenes, writing, “An inappropriate comment. A raised voice. A hair pull. A held breath. A clenched jaw. A clenched fist. Fist connecting with flesh. And then, worse. Much worse.”
She continued: “Things done when there were fewer people in the room, but the rooms were never empty. Averted eyes, silenced protests, and whispers when something went wrong. Knowing our set was the one talked about on all the others. Bracing for conflict, for screaming, for humiliation when something, anything, triggered outsized rage.”
Bush initially chose to stay quiet.
“At the time, nobody knew. Not really. Not enough. That’s what I told myself, anyway. I’ve been told I am alarmingly high functioning, but up until then, I had just called it ‘being a professional,’” she wrote. “I’d learned it on my first show: Put the job, the family, above all else, and never let a guy who can’t control himself ding your work ethic or your integrity. You can take it. I’d had a few years of lovely sets in between, but a decade of training never leaves you — and in this heightened version of having my ability to perform tested? I snapped right back into that rhythm.”
Adjusting to Remain on the Show
Bush wrote that she cut her hair shorter and shorter to avoid hair pulls, tried to make “less noise,” and ignored the instinct to leave despite physical symptoms of stress including hives, weight fluctuations and more.
Hearing From the Costar
Bush recalled receiving a text from “him” the day an article ran about the investigation that took place on set.
“My stomach dropped when I saw his name on my lock screen,” she wrote. “I wondered what he could possibly want to say to me. I opened it and saw the message only contained the link to the clean-up piece. No other words. As if my boogeyman on the other end was saying, ‘Gotcha, you f***ing little bitch,’ as he’d called me more than once at work. The article contained an assertion that he was remorseful and he’d apologized to everyone he’d hurt. Not to me, I thought. Not ever. Not that it mattered. I was done holding my breath.”
Getting Treatment
According to EW, Bush wrote about getting treatment for PTSD after Chicago P.D.
“It felt more important for me to reflect on how hard it can be when you consider yourself to be a strong person or a capable person or an advocate to admit that you just can’t do something anymore — that is a lesson I wasn’t given,” she told the outlet. “Every lesson I was given was, ‘Be professional, work through it no matter what. Always prioritize everybody else. Be good, be good, be good.’ Eventually I had to say, ‘Oh, I’m allowed to be done. And nobody ever taught me that.’ If I can offer that to some other young woman, then it’s worth it.”
