A high school basketball team, a small town, multiple romances, two half brothers, decades of family feud, nine seasons and one podcast.
Dig out your Juicy tracksuits, platform flip flops and low-rise jeans because we’re taking it back to the early 2000s. “One Tree Hill” stars Sophia Bush (who played Brooke Davis), Hilarie Burton Morgan (who played Peyton Sawyer) and Bethany Joy Lenz (who played Haley James Scott aka “tutor girl”) have reunited to start their own podcast reminiscing each episode of their hit series.
The iHeartRadio weekly podcast “Drama Queens” dropped their first episode on June 20 and has since released their second episode, titled “Take Me to the Pilot (S1, E1 ‘Pilot’)” and it is everything I didn’t know I needed. The actresses rewatched the pilot episode for the first time in almost 20 years and spilled all the secrets and behind-the-scenes details that have never been divulged.
Though, there is more to this podcast than girl-talk and recollection.
The announcement of this podcast comes after many cast members reveal they experienced inappropriate behavior and being “fetishized” on set, mainly by Mark Schwahn, the creator of the show who has yet to comment on any of the allegations. Bush, 38, told People that “It feels great to be executive producing this podcast together. We’re like, ‘Oh, who’s in charge? We’re in charge.’ Yeah. We’re in charge and it’s great. I love it. I love a reclamation.”
Lenz, 40, told People, “There’s going to be a lot of candid talk about what we experienced, but we’re not trying to be like Jerry Springer and trash everything.” She also said she loved OTH and she loves what she’s doing now, as do her co-hosts.
“One Tree Hill” first aired in 2003 on the WB, which shut down three years later, moving the soap to The CW channel. The actresses spoke on moving from big cities to the small town of Wilmington, N.C., where the show takes place. All three women were in their early twenties when they made the move and dedicated themselves to the show for nine seasons (six for Burton). In the second episode of the podcast, Burton, 39, even revealed she was filming for OTH during the week and flying out to LA on the weekends to shoot for another project she was working on.
The podcast discloses secrets you can only hear from the drama queens themselves, like Hilary Burton’s parents thinking she was interested in Paul Johansson (who played Dan Scott) and how the women felt when they found out James Lafferty (who plays Nathan Scott) was only 17 at the beginning of season one.
You can listen to “Drama Queens” on all podcast streaming platforms. A new episode is released every Sunday, and the hosts recommend watching the episode (which streams on Hulu) that correlates with the podcast before listening.