Sophia Bush Kills Her Darlings: The Stories That Didn't Make the Memoir

Sophia Bush's memoir "And I'll Tell You Mine" lands Oct. 27, and she cut some of the best material herself. The actress told Variety she treated the book like a rollercoaster, shaping it until the arc was right — and some stories paid the price.

What made the cut?

Bush covers her childhood, her politics, her past and present relationships, and the roles that made her famous. "There were things that I knew were very important to talk about because they're sort of the foundation for the lens through which I see the world, and some of those things are really beautiful, and some of those things are really hard," she said.

She frames the project as an archaeology of her own conditioning. "When you finally take apart the box that society builds for you and decide you're going to build your own, it's impossible not to look back at everything and figure out, where did that conditioning come from?" she said.

The cutting hurt. "I had the experience so many writers have where you have to kill your darlings, and it's really difficult," she said. Her consolation: "They could go in the second one if I choose to write it."

Why One Tree Hill is in and Chicago P.D. isn't — mostly

Bush details her time on "One Tree Hill" and the abuse much of the cast allegedly experienced at the hands of creator Mark Schwahn. She handles "Chicago P.D." differently — no names, few particulars, partly because the show is still on the air.

"There are 200 people that I care very much about, whose jobs are the lifeline for their families," she said of the difference. "It's not my place to choose when to speak for other people who aren't ready and might not ever be."

She did write the fuller account, for herself. "I did write the other, and then I put it away," she said.

She pushes back at the notion that survivors lose the right to speak with time, pointing to Megyn Kelly critiquing the Jane Doe at Cornell while Kelly herself didn't speak about her abuse by Roger Ailes for over 10 years. "I think this reaction that women aren't allowed to speak after a certain amount of time is so strange," she said.

What's the real takeaway, according to Bush?

Not the particulars. "The really important takeaway is that it's one in three of us and that's a conservative estimate, and that's irrespective of industry, age, socioeconomic status," she said. "It's just a fact of the planet."

She sent the One Tree Hill chapters to "the gaggle of girls from Wilmington" before publication and described her method as "forensic reporting." "48 of us, by the end of this, went on the record about the same person, women from multiple productions saying exactly what everyone meant… that removes the knee-jerk reaction from the manosphere to say, 'Oh, she's exaggerating.' No, I'm not," she said.

Could she join The Hunting Wives?

"John Tucker Must Die" doesn't appear in the book, but Bush remains close with Brittany Snow and has recently befriended Malin Akerman. Would she join "The Hunting Wives"? Not a no. "Especially because Brittany and I in 'John Tucker Must Die' were everyone's gay awakening," she said. "Of course I would be thrilled, and I'm also such a fan that I'm like I don't know if I would want the spoilers!"

What about the online backlash?

After her "Call Her Daddy" podcast appearance, the comments were brutal. "This household voting manosphere Christian fascist cesspool really hates a woman who says, 'I was unhappy, so I made a different decision,'" she said. She mostly stays offline about herself. "These platforms algorithmically surface those things," she noted — a privileged entertainer's complaint, she admits, but "deeply traumatizing" all the same.

The memoir's full title is "And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes from a Life in Progress." Whether the shelved Chicago P.D. chapters ever surface may depend on whether Bush chooses that second book.