Inside Sophia Bush And Jesse Lee Soffer's Real-Life Relationship
Sophia Bush announced her engagement to then-boyfriend Grant Hughes via Instagram in August 2021. "So it turns out that being your favorite person's favorite person is the actual best feeling on planet Earth #YES," she captioned her announcement post. Hughes returned his fiancee's sweet sentiments with an Instagram post of his own, writing, "She is my forever Favorite. This is my favorite. And our life is that we're building because she said 'Yes' is already my favorite." Fans are no doubt overjoyed for the lovebirds, especially because Bush hasn't had an easy go of things in the love department.
Bush was previously married to her "One Tree Hill" co-star Chad Michael Murray, though she called time on their short-lived union about a year after the wedding, according to TODAY. To this day, Bush prefers not to discuss her ex, as she told the outlet. "I've tried to poke fun at being a dumb kid and whenever I've done that, it gets twisted into talking s**t about somebody who I don't even know anymore," she explained. Following the split, Bush went on to date another former co-star, "Chicago P.D." actor Jesse Lee Soffer. The pair broke up nearly a year after they began dating, but Bush doesn't regret her past romances. "I've dated a couple of the wrong guys, but I've also had great love in my life," she admitted to The Chicago Sun-Times' Splash magazine, via Us Weekly. Ahead of Bush and Hughes' nuptials, here's a look back at her time with Soffer.
Sophia Bush and Jesse Lee Soffer met on-set
According to Us Weekly, Sophia Bush and Jesse Lee Soffer were first rumored to be dating in 2014, after meeting on "Chicago P.D." Though this news broke in August, the pair had reportedly been keeping their relationship under wraps for a few months. "[Sophia and Jesse] have been secretly dating for over three months, but only their close friends know," a source told E! News at the time. "Jesse is super-sweet and they are really cute together." A second source added that the whole cast of "Chicago P.D." was "super-close" and spent "every waking moment together."
Unfortunately, Bush and Soffer's union wasn't meant to be and they split in 2015. Still, their break-up was amicable — it simply seemed to be a case of two people growing apart. "Sophia and Jesse just didn't work out," an insider told Just Jared. "They dated for about a year and then grew apart. They're still friends though!" The exes were spotted holding hands in September of that year, sparking rumors of a reconciliation, per Us Weekly. Nothing much came of it, and Soffer was later linked to Bush's former "One Tree Hill" co-star Torrey DeVitto in 2018. Bush consequently spoke on Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast about how "everyone has dated everyone else" in the entertainment industry, via Entertainment Tonight. "Some of our favorite celebrity couples are people who married the fourth costar they dated," she added.
Sophia Bush left Chicago P.D. after the breakup
Though Sophia Bush and Jesse Lee Soffer kept things professional on the set of "Chicago P.D." after their split, Bush opted to leave the show in 2017, per TheWrap. She later opened up on the "Armchair Expert" podcast that her reasons for doing so had everything to do with the show's "abusive behavior" and "intolerable on-set conditions," but fans initially speculated that her exit may have had something to do with Soffer. Soffer himself chose to speak out about her "sad" departure, according to TVLine. "You know, it's always sad when a cast member leaves a show," he said. "We're a huge family, and she's a huge part of making the show what it was. We all created something together, and so that's always difficult. But the show must go on. That's how it works."
After public scrutiny of her relationship with Soffer (and others), Bush has since learned to keep her love life as private as possible. "When you are a person who lives in the public eye, everybody wants to pick over everything and that can be really tricky," the actress told Entertainment Tonight in June 2021. "I also grew up in the early aughts when girls were raked over the coals for any choices that they made. And I just was like, 'I don't think I like this.'" Keeping things quiet seemed to have worked out well for Bush in the end, as she's currently waiting to say "I do!" to Grant Hughes.