Feature image of Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation

Following the intense speculation about their relationship last fall, neither actress/activist Sophia Bush or soccer player Ashlyn Harris spoke publicly about to confirm or deny their relationship or its timeline, but they were appearing in public together, here and there, and Ashlyn made it clear on her on social media that she’d not cheated on her wife, Ali Krieger. Today, in a classy as fuck move from Sophia Bush, Bush appeared on the cover of Glamour Magazine to discuss her divorce, her rebirth, finding love again and being a part of the queer community.

In an intro from the magazine, they write that following the unconfirmed news that Ashlyn and Sophia were dating, “the internet seemed to be foaming at the digital mouth for a scandal, but to those who knew her, it was clear she’d never been more herself.” (I hope someone wins a Pulitzer for “foaming at the digital mouth.”) The essay, written by Sophia Bush, does a masterful job of gently moving her relationship with Ashlyn out of the realm of scandal and into a much different story about two women connecting over their respective breakups during an extremely painful time for Bush.

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Bush writes eloquently about her own marriage to Grant Hughes, which she describes as mostly unhappy and cloaked in unease so thick she nearly called the whole thing off before it happened. But she didn’t. She got married, and then began what was ultimately a physically and emotionally painful fertility journey that didn’t end in having a child but did end in her realizing she’d made a mistake to marry the man she’d married. She took a theater job in London to get away from it all, but found herself deteriorating physically once there, spending multiple nights in the hospital until she simply couldn’t take it anymore.

In the summer of 2023 she returned to L.A.. She and her husband separated and she was preparing to file for divorce. She began connecting with a group of women also going through breakups, a kind of support group. Amongst them was Ashlyn Harris, who she’d known since 2019. And then it started happening:

I didn’t expect to find love in this support system. I don’t know how else to say it other than: I didn’t see it until I saw it. And I think it’s very easy not to see something that’s been in front of your face for a long time when you’d never looked at it as an option and you had never been looked at as an option. What I saw was a friend with her big, happy life. And now I know she thought the same thing about me.

Mutual friends noticed the connection between Ashlyn Harris and Sophia Bush before Bush did, and the two went on their first date, a four hour dinner that became “one of the most surreal experiences of [her] life thus far.” She cites their connection and their love as something that set her free and made her happy in a way she hasn’t ever been before, and that it was painful to whether accusations like “the idea that [she] left [her] marriage based on some hysterical rendezvous” or that she was a “home-wrecker” or that she left her ex due to a sudden realization that she liked girls, insisting “my partners have known what I’m into for as long as I have.” She recalls the transition into this relationship as one that was making a concerted effort “to be graceful with other people’s processing, their time and obligations, and their feelings.”

She didn’t want to respond to the haters but she’s happy, now, to tell her own story, to be open about her relationship and her sexual orientation: “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.”

Stephanie Nguyen, Sophia Bush, Bobby Berk and Ashlyn Harris attend Elton John AIDS foundation annual viewing party with Tequila Don Julio at West Hollywood Park on March 10, 2024 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Tequila Don Julio)

In the “love is love” era, it is refreshing to have Bush, a person who has long been an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, to also understand the value and impact of coming out. In a Glamour podcast released today tied to the cover story, Bush reflects “I would’ve liked for a lot of things to happen a little differently, but at the end of the day I have nothing to apologize for. The bonus of this whole journey is that I spend every day around a person that being close to is like, getting shone on by the sun. I want that for all of us. I want people to find the right room.” Reflecting on where she’s at now, Bush says, “I feel like I’ve been wearing an 80 pound weighted vest, for probably a decade? And I finally just fucking put it down.” So many queer people who have gone through their own coming out journeys will know exactly what that profound relief feels like. 

The reaction on social media has been largely positive, including props and love from former Queer Eye cast member Bobby Berk and actress Brittany Snow, while other fans cite enormous and longstanding girl crushes on Sophia.

“I really love who I am, at this age and in this moment,” Bush writes in her essay. “I’m so lucky that my parents, having spent time with Ash over the holidays, said, ‘Well, this finally looks right.'”

You can read the entire story at Glamour Magazine.

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