Sophia Bush Recalls Moment She Was 'Close to Calling Off' Grant Hughes Wedding — and When the Marriage Was 'Over'

Sophia Bush almost had cold feet at the altar.

Penning an essay as Glamour’s April 2024 cover star, the One Tree Hill star, 41, revealed that she nearly opted not to go through with her wedding to entrepreneur Grant Hughes two months before they held a lavish ceremony in Oklahoma in June 2022.

“In April of 2022 I was close to calling off my wedding. Instead of running away, I doubled down on being a model wife,” she wrote.

On their first anniversary, after her husband posted a tribute to their marriage on Instagram, Bush felt “mounting pressure from strangers online” to return the sentiment. She recalled choosing a picture of the couple running away from the camera and captioning it with “a really nice story” about the photo’s subjects.

“Except it was just that: a story. I typed something about how incredibly happy I was and tried to drown out the familiar voice in my head. Make it look easy. Make it look perfect. If your smile is shiny enough, maybe no one will notice that up close all of your teeth are broken. But sometimes broken is just broken,” the Chicago P.D. actress continued. After hitting post, she threw up in the bathroom.

As she underwent six months of fertility examinations, Bush speculated that she “knew deep down” that she “absolutely had made a mistake.”

It wasn’t until she threw herself into work on the West End’s 2:22 A Ghost Story that she realized the toll the stress had taken on her body. When half the company fell ill, everyone recovered quickly except her. She remembered spending multiple nights in the hospital and receiving “endless amounts of fluids.”

“It was clear that my body was screaming and I had to listen,” Bush wrote. “It was hard for me to accept. I was part of a team. But 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.”

PEOPLE revealed in August 2023 that Bush had filed for divorce from Hughes, two weeks after departing the London play. 

“Sophia and Grant were friends for 10 years and bonded during COVID through their love of community service,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE at the time. “They continue to run their nonprofit together and remain good friends.”

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Bush is now dating former American soccer player Ashlyn Harris, who had also filed for divorce from then-wife and fellow soccer pro Ali Krieger in September 2023. A bulk of the actress' Glamour essay centered around her coming out story, noting that she identifies as "queer."

"I finally feel like I can breathe. I don't think I can explain how profound that is. I feel like I was wearing a weighted vest for who knows how long. I hadn’t realized how heavy it was until I finally just put it down," she wrote. "This might sound crazy—but I think other people in trauma recovery will get it—I am taking deep breaths again. I can feel my legs and feet. I can feel my feet in my shoes right now. It makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time."