Watch: Sophia Bush Reacts to Ashlyn Harris Revealing She Wore a Jockstrap to Oscars After-Party
All Sophia Bush and Ashlyn Harris have to do is think of each other to have peace of mind.
“I am so, so happy, and I am in a position now where I can protect that joy and happiness,” Harris said on a March 2025 episode of Danielle Robay‘s Question Everything podcast, noting that dating someone who was “clickbait clearly for every f–king tabloid” could be a lot, but was also totally worth it.
“I just protect my overall bubble,” the 40-year-old athlete, who retired from professional soccer in 2022, continued. “Everything has gotten tight and small and intentional. It’s OK to make big changes in your life if they bring you joy and they are right for you.”
Harris and Bush continued to walk that walk a few months later, tying the knot in the summer of 2025 in a ceremony so private, their wedding announcement came in the form of a mention in Bush’s upcoming memoir, And I Will Tell You Mine: Notes From a Life in Progress.
“When you get to this stage in your life, you begin to unpack what’s yours and what’s always sort of been for everyone else,” Bush, 44, told Vogue in a joint interview with her wife ahead of the book’s Oct. 27 release. Which is why they chose to swap vows quietly in Upstate New York with Harris’ kids—daughter Sloane, 5, and son Ocean, 4—in attendance.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Valentino Beauty
The newlyweds then hit the road, visiting family around the country to share their status update in person.
Nodding to Harris by her side, Bush added, “You’ve been playing in stadiums in front of 60,000 people since you were 15 or 16, and I started playing a character for tens of millions of people when I was 21. It’s such a privilege to be able to perform as an athlete or an actor, but it also comes with certain costs.”
But these two, who teamed up in 2023, have been determined not to let outside noise keep them from reaching their relationship goals.
Already friends, they fell for each other in the aftermath of major life changes: Bush and husband Grant Hughes broke up in August 2023 just 13 months after saying “I do”; the following month, Harris and fellow soccer player Ali Krieger ended their four-year marriage.
“I didn’t expect to find love in this support system,” Bush wrote in an April 2024 essay for Glamour. “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.”
But once she saw it, the One Tree Hill alum took the opportunity to shoot her shot.
Instagram / Sophia Bush
“Our friends were trying to set her up with someone and I was like, ‘If she’s ready to date, she’s f–king going on a date with me,'” Bush recalled on a July 24 episode of her podcast Work in Progress. “And people were like, ‘Wait, what?’ She even said to me, ‘Hold the phone, I always thought you were straight.’ And I was like, ‘I always thought you were happy. But we’re both f–king single. What are we doing?'”
Yet when they were first romantically linked in October 2023, speculation erupted that their coupling had something to do with their respective divorces.
“People looking in from the outside weren’t privy to just how much time it took, how many painful conversations were had,” Bush wrote in Glamour. “A lot of effort was made to be graceful with other people’s processing, their time and obligations, and their feelings.”
Suffice it to say, the “accusations of being a home-wrecker” and rumors that Bush left her husband “because I suddenly realized I wanted to be with women” were way off the mark.
As the Chicago Fire alum noted, “my partners have known what I’m into for as long as I have (so that’s not it, y’all, sorry!).”
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Meanwhile, Harris had been on her own journey of self-discovery before dating Bush, one that involved learning more about what she needed in a partner.
“I think we don’t ever have to feel trapped in something that doesn’t serve us,” the World Cup champion said on Question Everything. I think as women we get this idea that we’ve kind of dug this hole, we kind of have to sit in it and make our bed. I kind of just was like, ‘I have one life to live. I’m on borrowed time.’ I just wanted more.”
She was admittedly scared to “make the hard decision, do the brave thing” and pursue the love she felt she deserved, Harris said. But then “this f–king unicorn fell in my lap. There’s no coincidence.”
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for A Sense of Home
And though they remain protective of what is now their shared bubble, Bush and Harris aren’t shirking the spotlight, bringing Ocean and Sloane to their first red carpet event Sept. 23.
While Harris and Krieger remain amicable co-parents—”We always make sure we tell our children they get the best of two worlds,” the Wide Open With Ashlyn Harris host told E! News in 2025—Bush also adores her blended family.
“In awe of the mother you are @ashlynharris24, today and every day,” the Grey’s Anatomy actress wrote in a Mother’s Day tribute to her then-future wife in 2025. “You. You’re the gift. To them. To me. To every person lucky enough to be loved by you. I’ve never known anyone as magical as you—and I think that’s saying a lot because my life is full of some really incredibly magical humans.”
Read on to see more of Bush and Harris’ magical moments together:
Instagram / Ashlyn Harris
(Photo by: Todd Williamson/Peacock via Getty Images)
Todd Williamson/Peacock via Getty Images
Instagram/Michelle Tillou
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Tequila Don Julio
Paul Morigi/Getty Images
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Kimball Stroud & Associates
Instagram/Sophia Bush
Instagram/Sophia Bush
Instagram / Ashlyn Harris / Sophia Bush
Instagram / Sophia Bush
Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage
Instagram / Ashlyn Harris
John Nacion/WireImage
John Nacion/Tubi via Getty Images
