'I thought you were straight?' Sophia Bush got candid about her first date with Ashlyn Harris.

Iconic '00s actress Sophia Bush has gotten delightfully candid about how her relationship with soccer star, Ashlyn Harris, began. 

For an episode of her Work in Progress podcast, the One Tree Hill actress spoke about what was running through her mind when she asked out Harris, who she reportedly started dating in October 2023, two months after she filed for divorce and wiped her husband from Instagram. 

"Our friends were trying to set her up with someone, and I was like, 'If she's ready to date, she's going on a date with me.' Like, sorry. Uh-uh," joked Bush with her guest Nico Tortorella.

"Yeah. Like, no f***ing way. And people were, like, 'Wait, what?'"

Bush's friend passed on the actress' interest in a date with Harris to the former soccer player. 

"She even said to me, 'Hold the phone. I always thought you were straight?!' And I was like, 'I always thought you were happy. But, like, we're both single. What are we doing?'" recalled the 42-year-old. 

Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris. Image: Instagram/ashlynharris24.

On their first date, the two women had a giggle over how they had never considered the possibility of getting to date each other. 

"We were f***ing cackling because I was like, 'Yeah. dude, I never looked at you as an option,' and she was like, 'I never looked at you as an option.'"

Cuties! 

The couple have been going strong since their first date, attending red carpet events together and popping up on each other's Instagram pages with loving dedications.

The John Tucker Must Die actress filed for divorce from her entrepreneur husband, Grant Hughes, after 13 months of marriage in August 2023. A month later, Harris filed for divorce from her soccer player wife, Ali Krieger, right before she connected with Bush. 

Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris. Image: Instagram/ashlynharris24.

In October, rumours began to circulate that Bush and Harris had become an item, leading to the TV star eventually penning a powerful essay for Glamour in April 2024 where she came out as queer. 

"I’ve experienced so much safety, respect, and love in the queer community, as an ally all of my life, that, as I came into myself, I already felt it was my home," she wrote. 

"I think I’ve always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum. Right now I think the word that best defines it is queer. I can’t say it without smiling, actually. And that feels pretty great." 

On her podcast, she reflected on the pressure from outside forces to define her sexuality. 

"Even a lot of the queer women in my life were, like, 'Oh, we knew you were, like, an ally and we maybe wondered when we saw this TV show or this movie you've done or whatever: 'that doesn't really look like acting.' But, like, we didn't really know,'" she said.

"And I was like, 'Wow, we all do it. Like, even in our friend groups, we make assumptions.'"

Ultimately, Bush decided to publicly come out. "People will really take your self-discovery from you. What made me make the decision was knowing that we’ve gotten into a post-fact vacuum," said Bush. 

"So I was like, ‘What I’m gonna do is just sit and wait, but eventually what I'm gonna do is clarify very firmly but gently what’s real, cause it matters to me.'"

Feature image: Getty.