Sophia Bush says she wishes she had waited another six weeks before going on her first date with Ashlyn Harris. The actress revisited that decision during the October 21 episode of Call Her Daddy, while again rejecting allegations that their relationship began as an affair.
“Two people who had filed for divorce and lived in separate residences from their exes went to dinner,” the 44-year-old told host Alex Cooper.
Bush filed for divorce from entrepreneur Grant Hughes in August 2023. Harris, a former U.S. women’s national soccer team goalkeeper, filed for divorce from Ali Krieger the following month. Bush and Harris were publicly linked that October, as PEOPLE noted in its coverage of the interview.
The conversation comes ahead of Bush’s first memoir, And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes from a Life in Progress. Flatiron Books will publish it October 27. The memoir covers her acting career, marriages and experiences of rebuilding her life in public.
Bush Describes How Her Friendship With Harris Became Romantic
Bush and Harris first connected through Instagram in 2015 and met in person at an event in 2019. Their friendship continued for years before Bush recognized that her feelings had changed. Telling Harris was another matter. Bush recalled struggling to make herself say what she wanted.
She finally asked during a New York stopover before a family trip overseas. Leaving the country gave her reassurance: if Harris turned her down, she could spend nine days being comforted by her mother before coming home.
Instead of making a clear invitation, she stumbled through a conversation about their friends and suggested having a meal without the group. Harris eventually asked whether Bush meant a date. “I’ve never been less cool,” Bush recalled in the interview, transcribed by SiriusXM.
The date itself came on Bush’s return through New York, where she already had tickets to a comedy show. She remembered being so nervous beforehand that she kept changing outfits. Sitting beside someone she had known for years suddenly felt entirely different.
She Says Public Accusations Can Reach Families and Careers
Bush told Cooper that part of her wants to release every detail to challenge the stories told about her. She has resisted, saying she does not want to respond to being hurt by hurting someone else, particularly when children are involved.
She also warned that stories circulated for strangers’ entertainment can damage reputations, affect jobs and interfere with someone’s ability to support a family. She questioned whether sharing more private information would change the minds of people who had already decided what to believe.
Her frustration predates the podcast. In an April 2024 Glamour essay, Bush wrote that outsiders had not witnessed the painful conversations preceding her divorce and new relationship. She described finding support among other women going through separations and said falling in love within that circle had surprised her.
Bush Says She Proposed Before Their Private Wedding
Bush and Harris revealed their marriage in a September 30 Vogue interview. They had married privately in upstate New York during the summer of 2025, with Harris and Krieger’s daughter, Sloane, and son, Ocean, among the small group in attendance.
On the podcast, Bush disclosed that she was the one who proposed. She kept the details of that moment private but told Cooper she was proud of how she had done it. “Turns out I was never supposed to be asked. I was supposed to ask,” she said.
The ceremony came together around a visit from Bush’s best friend and her child. Harris’s best friend also came, and Bush said the couple prepared food, put it on a smoker, married in the backyard and sat down to dinner. Later that night, the family roasted marshmallows together.