Bethany Joy Lenz Reveals the Unexpected One Tree Hill Costar She 'Developed a Crush on' During Filming

Bethany Joy Lenz reveals new details about her on-set dynamic with her One Tree Hill costars, including an unexpected crush on one of his costars.

In his new memoir, Vampire Dinner: Life in a Cult TV Show (Albeit an Actual Cult!)Lenz, who played Haley James Scott for the show’s entire nine seasons, describes her early beginnings on the show.

At one point in the book, she recalls her first table read with the entire cast, including Chad Michael Murray, Sophia Bush, Hilarie Burton and James Lafferty. Although she had previously interacted with Murray during her audition, she notes that she was especially excited to be surrounded by two ’90s heartthrobs, Paul Johansson and Craig Sheffer, who played brothers Dan and Keith.

While reminiscing about their previous acting roles, she notes that Sheffer had a “rough vibe” that “worked for him very so,” before admitting that she had a bit of a crush on him throughout the series.

“I fell in love with him too, which is why Paul later mocked me endlessly,” she explained, referring to her longtime friendship with Johansson.

Bethany Joy Lenz and Craig Sheffer.

Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via Getty; Bobby Bank/WireImage

Bethany Joy Lenz admitted that she had a strained relationship with Sophia Bush during filming One Tree Hill

“The first thing Craig said to me, after I did a double take under the bright fluorescent lights in the room, was ‘Wow, you look like a monster!’ Which is always nice for a young woman to hear,” she said of their first interaction.

Lenz later reveals that Sheffer wasn’t the only costar she fell in love with during filming. Although she notes that many of her male co-stars were in other relationships at the time, she eventually developed a close relationship with Tyler Hilton, who played her short-lived love interest, Chris Keller.

“Tyler and I started out together as two kids in a potato sack race,” she explains, adding that they became fast friends while singing and recording in Wilmington, NC, where they taped shows and later went on tour together.

“Even though he didn’t share my faith (or my family), I was very much in love with him,” she says. However, he says things took a turn when Hilton suspected she was part of a religious cult.

“As the tour went on, Tyler seemed to want more space away from me,” she recalls. “I didn’t understand why until he invited me to a hotel room one night.”

Bethany Joy Lenz, Tyler Hilton on One Tree Hill in 2003.

Warner Bros./Everett

After Hilton’s tour manager became aware of a potential story about Lenz’s involvement with a religious cult, she says Hilton approached her directly about the situation because his name was linked to the story because they “hung out a lot.”

Although Lenz denied she belonged to a religious cult at the time, she says her relationship with Hilton was not the same after that.

“Tyler always treated me normally from then on, but I hated having that hanging over me. He became a good friend to me, whether he was in love or not, and it hurt that people kept distancing themselves from me.”

In an interview for a new PEOPLE cover story, Lenz recalls that Sheffer was one of the first actors to talk about her potential cult affiliation.

How One Tree Hill Star Bethany Joy Lenz Was Lured Into A Cult For A Decade—And How She Got Out (Exclusive)

“We were sitting in the bleachers shooting a basketball scene at Laney High School, and he started asking me about my family,” says Lenz.

She began to tell him all about her “chosen family,” a close-knit group of deeply religious friends she had met at a Bible study in Los Angeles, who lived in a commune-like house in Idaho, led by a pastor she calls ” Les”.

“At the end Craig says, ‘You know you’re in a cult, right?’ ” writes Lenz.

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It would be another eight years before she left for her daughter, although Lenz says her co-stars must have been aware of her ties to the religious group.

“I could see it on their faces,” she says of her One Tree Hill costars, about what they knew and thought about it.

“But I would justify it, like, ‘There’s no way I could be in a cult,'” Lenz explains. “It’s just that I have access to a relationship with God and people in a way that everyone else really wants but doesn’t know how to achieve.”

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Source: HIS Education