Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris’s Complete Relationship Timeline

The sports world thought it was dealing with its own Scandoval in October 2023, when reports that famed soccer player Ashlyn Harris was dating One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush surfaced just six days after news of Harris’s divorce from former teammate Ali Krieger went public. Like Harris, Bush had recently split from her own spouse, Grant Hughes, leading many on the internet to believe something nefarious transpired. Let’s just say, the phrase “home-wrecker” was thrown around a lot.

However, in a first-person account of the entire ordeal for Glamour’s April cover story, Bush claimed that while she’s known Harris since 2019, the pair connected romantically while processing their respective breakups in the summer of 2023. “In hindsight, maybe it all had to happen slowly and then suddenly all at once,” Bush said of falling for Harris. “Maybe it was all fated. Maybe it really is a version of invisible string theory. I don’t really know. But I do know that for a sparkly moment I felt like maybe the universe had been conspiring for me. And that feeling that I have in my bones is one I’ll hold on to no matter where things go from here.”

Here is a complete timeline of Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris’s relationship, presented with the most recent developments at the top.

Sophia Bush: ‘I Finally Feel Like I Can Breathe’

In 2023 actor Sophia Bush filed for divorce one year after a storybook wedding. By the fall it was public knowledge that she was in a new relationship. With a woman. 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. Here, in her own words, Bush speaks to the power of learning to listen to her intuition.

April 25, 2024: Bush opens up about her relationship with Harris and discusses the backlash in her candid Glamour cover essay. “People looking in from the outside weren’t privy to just how much time it took, how many painful conversations were had. A lot of effort was made to be graceful with other people’s processing, their time and obligations, and their feelings,” she writes. “What felt like seconds after I started to see what was in front of me, the online rumor mill began to spit in the ugliest ways. There were blatant lies. Violent threats. There were accusations of being a home-wrecker. The ones who said I’d left my ex because I suddenly realized I wanted to be with women—my partners have known what I’m into for as long as I have (so that’s not it, y’all, sorry!).”

She continues, “The idea that I left my marriage based on some hysterical rendezvous—that, to be crystal-clear, never happened—rather than having taken over a year to do the most soul crushing work of my life? Rather than realizing I had to be the most vulnerable I’ve ever been, on a public stage, despite being terrified to my core? It feels brutal. Just because I didn’t want to process my realizations in real time on social media and spell them out for the world doesn’t mean the journey wasn’t long and thoughtful and exhaustive.”

Bush says she’s “absolutely in awe” of Harris’s “relentless integrity,” writing, “The way she prioritizes and centers her kids, not only in her life but in the core of her being, is breathtaking to behold. Falling in love with her has sutured some of my own childhood wounds, and made me so much closer to my own mother. Seeing Ashlyn choose to not simply survive, but thrive, for her babies has been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed a friend do. And now I get to love her. How lucky am I?”

March 10, 2024: Harris and Bush make their Hollywood debut as a couple at Elton John’s Oscar party.

Ashlyn Harris, Eric McCormack, and Sophia Bush attend the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s 32nd Annual Academy Awards Viewing Party on March 10, 2024 in West Hollywood, California.

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

January 2, 2024: Bush says 2023 “humbled,” “broke,” and “betrayed” her in a lengthy New Year’s Instagram post.

November 18, 2023: Harris responds to the cheating rumors in an emotional Instagram note, which does not mention Bush. In the post, she explains that she and Krieger were advised to keep the news of their split private until after Krieger’s final season, though the information was leaked.

“Let me be clear: I did not step out on my marriage,” she writes, in part. “I was always faithful in my marriage, if not always totally happy.” You can read the post in its entirety here:

October 19, 2023: Krieger writes on Instagram that she’s “preparing for playoffs while in my Beyoncé lemonade era,” further fueling infidelity rumors. Krieger’s brother Kyle comments on the post, “Love you and so proud of you!! These hoes ain’t loyal!! But me and your fans are!”

US Women’s National Team player Alex Morgan also shows her support, writing, “These comments do not disappoint 🔥.”

October 17, 2023: People reports that Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris are dating. “After being friends for years, and running in the same social circles, Sophia and Ashlyn went out on their first dinner date a couple of weeks ago,” a source tells the publication. “This is so recent, and they are both beginning new chapters.”

The source continues, “Although it’s new information to the public, Ashlyn and Ali’s divorce began months ago and they have been living apart since the summer.”

October 11, 2023: People reports that Harris filed for divorce from Krieger on September 19, 2023.

September 19, 2023: Harris privately files for divorce from Krieger in Florida after nearly four years of marriage. The pair met while playing together on the United States National Team in 2010 and share two children: Sloane and Ocean.

August 4, 2023: Bush officially files for divorce from Grant Hughes after 13 months of marriage.

Summer 2023: In her April 2024 Glamour cover essay, Bush reveals she and Harris connected in a makeshift support group of friends going through divorces. “I didn’t expect to find love in this support system,” Bush writes. “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.”

After friends pointed out how they’d “finish each other’s sentences,” Bush says she eventually decided to ask Harris to a one-on-one lunch. “That meal was four and a half hours long and truly one of the most surreal experiences of my life thus far,” she writes.

July 21, 2023: Bush announces her exit from 2:22 A Ghost Story after experiencing medical issues relating to a virus that was going around the theater company.

“When half of our company went down with a virus, everyone recovered fast except for me. I continued to decline,” Bush reflects in her 2024 Glamour essay. “I needed to go home, where my doctors (and, truthfully, my health insurance) could get a better handle on my symptoms. My time in London was over. So was my marriage. It all came crashing down at once.”

June 27, 2023: This is the date listed as Bush and Hughes’s official date of separation on their divorce papers.

June 11, 2023: Hughes posts a tribute to Bush on their first wedding anniversary, which prompts Bush to share one as well. “When I saw it, I felt the blood drain from my face,” she reflects in her Glamour cover story in April 2024. “Fans and friends were telling me how exciting this milestone was and how happy I looked. I felt nothing. Things hadn’t been easy at home, but everyone says marriage is hard, right? As the day wore on, I felt mounting pressure from strangers online waiting for me to post something—what a strange part of public life to have to navigate—so I sat myself down and chose a picture.”

She continues, “I hit post. And then I walked into the bathroom and threw up.”

May 2023: Bush begins her run in the London play 2:22 A Ghost Story amid the “heartbreak of the fertility process.”

“I had to get out of our house. I had to get onstage. I had to get back in my body,” Bush tells Glamour in April 2024. “Maybe that could shift things. Maybe that would jump-start the joy I’d been chasing. The play slowly began to put me back together. It was grueling, and it was also the most exhilarating experience. I loved every second of it.”

June 2022: Bush marries Hughes in Oklahoma after nearly calling off the wedding in April 2022.

This post may be updated.