Bethany Joy Lenz Was Called “Too Fat” for Maxim Photoshoot With ‘One Tree Hill’ Co-Stars

Turns out there was plenty of offscreen drama lurking beneath One Tree Hill‘s Maxim storyline and the real-life photoshoot that followed. Series stars Hilarie Burton, Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz  unloaded on the latest episode of their Drama Queens podcast, where the three women revealed coercion and body shaming they say they faced from the show’s creator.

In the fourth episode of Season 4 of the teen drama (“Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started”), Brooke (Bush) helps Rachel (Daneel Ackles) take photos for Maxim magazine, creating a subplot that continues throughout the season.

Now, years later, the three podcast co-hosts shared that they never wanted to participate in the Maxim shoot, but claim One Tree Hill creator Mark Schwahn (who has since been accused of sexual harassment by 18 cast and crew members from the series) forced them to participate — except for Lenz, who said she was branded “too fat” to pose.

The three suspect that the show was trying to appeal to male viewers, as Schwahn accompanied this salacious storyline with a new abusive male character.

“I know they weren’t trying to solicit basement bullies on the internet, but they saw that a lot of young men were drawn to a violent assault of women and they went, ‘We should do more of that.’ Not, ‘Uh-oh, hold the phone,'” Bush said in the podcast episode, per Variety. “They were like, ‘Maybe we should do more! Maybe we should make the girls do Maxim and tell them they’ll get fired if they don’t.'”

Upon getting the offer to model for the real magazine — which caters to “the modern man” with promises to “seduce” and “entertain” them — Burton recalled Schwahn telling them that “no one” else wanted them and they should have been grateful for the opportunity.

She added, “It was very much a, ‘No one else wants you, the studio wants to cancel your show. You don’t start to generate some buzz and attract these male numbers, we’re dead and all your friends are going to lose their jobs.””

Bush echoed this fear, saying, “At that time, I said, ‘No I don’t want to do this’’ and I was told I had to.” She described the conversation as a “profound threat” that left her feeling like the set was “not a safe place.”

Lenz had a very different story, claiming she wasn’t even invited to the photoshoot. She was told that she wasn’t welcomed because she was deemed “too fat,” and was subsequently “replaced” with Ackles.

Variety reports that Burton and Bush were shocked by Lenz’s recollection, with Bush recalling, “When I said I don’t want to do it, I was like, ‘But Joy’s not doing it! She said no. Why does she get to say no?’ They go, ‘Well she said no, so you have to say yes. She said no first.'”

Drama Queens releases new episodes on Mondays via iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and podcast platforms.