Sophia Bush Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Sophia Bush marked her first Pride Month since coming out as queer with an impactful message.
“You are perfect. No matter how long it might take, you’ll find your people,” Bush, 41, wrote via Instagram Story on Sunday, June 2. “And they will help you find more and more of yourself. It’s worth it. You’re worth it.”
The One Tree Hill alum also reposted a quote from social media account We the Urban that read, “Pride is important because someone tonight still believes they’re better off dead than being themselves.”
Pride Month began on Saturday, June 1, to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City.
Take a look back at LGBT celebrities’ emotional, inspiring coming out stories from over the years — including Wentworth Miller, Ellen Page, Jodie Foster and more
Bush, for her part, publicly came out as queer in April.
“As I came into myself, I already felt it was my home. I think I’ve always known that my sexuality exists on a spectrum,” the actress penned in a Glamour essay. “Right now I think the word that best defines it is queer. I can’t say it without smiling, actually. And that feels pretty great.”
She continued: “I sort of hate the notion of having to come out in 2024. But I’m deeply aware that we are having this conversation in a year when we’re seeing the most aggressive attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community in modern history. There were more than 500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills proposed in state legislatures in 2023, so for that reason I want to give the act of coming out the respect and honor it deserves.”
Ashlyn Harris and Sophia Bush Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Kimball Stroud & Associates
Bush further noted that coming out “finally [feels] like [she] 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,” Bush added. “I hadn’t realized how heavy it was until I finally just put it down.”
Bush recently found love with soccer star Ashlyn Harris, bonding in late 2023 over their respective divorces. Bush filed for divorce from Grant Hughes in August 2023, two months before Harris, 38, filed to end her marriage to Ali Krieger.
Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris’ friendship turned romantic on the heels of their respective divorces from Grant Hughes and Ali Krieger, and they’ve been quietly building their relationship. A source exclusively told Us Weekly Bush and Harris “bonded over their breakups and having to start over” in October 2023, one month after they began dating. […]
Bush and Harris, who shares two children with Krieger, made their red carpet debut at April’s White House Correspondents Dinner. Despite their romance heating up, they squashed engaged speculation late last month.
“I hear the internet is being wild? Y’all 🤣⚰️I have no ‘news’ for you,” Bush wrote via Instagram Stories in May, after fans questioned why she hid her left hand in a picture with Harris. “But wouldn’t you put your hands all up in her jacket if you could?? (To be clear you can’t because boundaries, but I’ll continue to do it for you because I’m just generous like that.”
