Sophia Bush Says an Angry Fan Once Called Her a “Piece of Meat” and a “TV Prostitute”

Sophia Bush recently opened up about a bizarre encounter she had with an angry fan at a bar that has changed her attitude about going out in public.

In a recent episode of Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed podcast, the One Tree Hill actress explained that she was out with friends on St. Patrick’s Day when a fan began recording her with his camera.

“I had a beer and there was a guy at the table next to me and all my friends, who walked right up to me and stuck his camera right in my face to take a picture, almost hit me right in the face, with his phone,” she said.

“He keeps going and he’s getting rowdy and I can hear him swearing,” she said.

Despite her asking him to stop, the man continued to record her and take pictures for over 30 minutes. Bush explained, “I finally go over and I say, ‘Hi, I’m a person. I’d like to shake your hand. My name is Sophia. You’re making me really uncomfortable, man. I’ve asked you to stop. I’m a girl in a bar. You are a man I do not know. I don’t wanna be videoed on your phone. And my friends don’t either. Can you please stop?’”

The man refused to stop recording her, reportedly saying, “‘I don’t have to stop. You’re in public.’”

After Bush told him he was making her “feel like a piece of meat,” she said he continued harassing her. “He goes, ‘I watch your show, so I pay your f–king salary. You are a piece of meat to me,'” she said. He went on to call her “a TV prostitute.”

Bush admitted that talking about the incident was making her feel emotional.

“He meant it,” she said. “And then he starts yelling at me that he’s a lawyer so he knows his rights… I mean, it was insane.”

The Chicago P.D. actress said she went straight home after. Encounters like this, she explained, make it difficult to enjoy herself out in public.

“I don’t enjoy being in public anymore, in such a greater percentage than I used to,” she explained. “Now I’d much rather be at home. I used to love to go out and be in the world. I think that’s obviously a wild example, but it’s not the first time that I’ve experienced that.”

Bush shared the experience as an example of the industry’s “deeply toxic” culture.

“It’s very strange because in one sentence people will say, ‘Well you signed up for this’ and the other sentence they’ll say, ‘We’re entitled to this.’ I don’t think anyone is entitled to anything,” she said.