For six years in the early aughts, Hilarie Burton played Peyton Sawyer on The WB/CW's One Tree Hill, single-handedly spiking an interest in rock music for bored teenagers lapping up the show's romantic drama and great needle drops.
Nine years after the series wrapped in 2012, Burton and her co-stars Sophia Bush (Brooke Davis) and Bethany Joy Lenz (Haley James Scott) brought fans the podcast they didn't know they needed: Drama Queens.
When revisiting the show's best and worst episodes, the three OTH ladies haven't shied away from the cringey parts and the scandals plaguing the series. In 2017, Burton, Bush, and other women accused the show's creator Mark Schwahn of notable allegations. After an investigation, he was suspended from his most recent show, The Royals, and subsequently fired.
Burton's life has changed for the better since Drama Queens began airing, proving the podcast has been hers and her co-star's way of healing from those difficult years.
6 Hilarie Burton Was Reminded Of How Much One Tree Hill Fans Loved The Cast
Drama Queens has had an impact not just on fans, but on its stars as well. Burton said she was surprised to realize how much the OTH fanbase showed up for her and her co-stars, even after all those years.
"The memo I got over and over again was how replaceable I was," the actress said in an interview with The New York Times in January this year.
"What has been really humbling is that after getting that message, to have this fan base show up for a podcast 18 years later and tell you that you're not replaceable is really nice."
5 Hilarie Burton Reunited With Her One Tree Hill Co-Stars On Good Sam
The podcast gave Burton, Bush, and Lenz the chance to reunite on screen for the very first time since 2009. The trio appeared in an episode of Bush's short-lived medical drama Good Sam, where Burton and Lenz guest starred as sisters.
"[Good Sam showrunner Katie Wech] texted me and said, 'Hey, you're going to get the script for 108 and there's these two sisters in it. Should we get Joy and Hilarie to come do it? Do you think they'd want to? We'll just make an offer.' I was like, 'Well, I think they're gonna want to read the script first, but yeah!'" Bush told Variety about how the cameos came about.
Burton chimed in, "We didn't need to read the script."
4 Hilarie Burton Guest-Starred On A Mystery Podcast
But Drama Queens isn't Burton's only podcast. The actress and producer has also starred on fictional murder mystery podcast Bridgewater, appearing in the second season as Shelley Hoskins.
The podcast features Supernatural's Misha Collins in the lead role of folklore professor Jeremy Bradshaw, reopening a cold case about the 1980 disappearance of his father Thomas.
3 Hilarie Burton Has Her Own True Crime Show Now
Honoring her forensic psychology studies (yes, she did that before going into acting), Burton has been serving as host and executive producer of True Crime Stories: It Couldn't Happen Here since September 2021.
The TV series, streaming on several platforms and now in its second season, puts a spotlight on murder cases from small towns across the US, also exploring the aftermath and the blind spots in the criminal justice system.
"The true crime genre is really predatory and you make a TV show about the worst day of someone's life. Then everyone at home gets to say, 'Oh my God, that's crazy,' and change the channel when it's over. These victims and their families don't do that. They carry it forever," Burton told Marie Claire in October this year.
"We wanted our show to be deeply rooted in advocacy so that it became an easy thing to emulate. That is how you see something wrong in your community and you go out and you make a stink about it."
2 One Tree Hill's Very Own Drama Queens Went On Tour
The Drama Queens podcast has been so successful that Burton and her co-stars and real-life friends decided to go on tour to give fans the chance to be a part of it. The trio reunited with several actors from the show too, including Barbara Alyn Woods, Lee Norris, Antwon Tanner, Tyler Hilton, and more.
On this on-the-road adventure, Burton was behind the wheel of the RV bringing her, Bush, and Lenz to several cities in the US.
"I didn't get to take or post many photos, cause I was steering that beast of an RV we commandeered. But there were so many sweet memories, professionally and personally," Burton wrote in an Instagram post marking the end of the tour.
1 Hilarie Burton And Her Husband Launched Their Own Gin And Whiskey
Burton has been in a relationship with The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan since 2009. The pair have two children and tied the knot in October 2019.
In April this year, the couple launched MF Libations, their own gin and whiskey distillery.
"On our first date, it was clear that @jeffreydeanmorgan was a big dreamer. Very quickly we planned a family, a farm, small businesses, a production company, and a hefty amount of fun all throughout. And it has been the WILDEST of rides. But even now - 13 years in - we are still daydreaming about what else we can create together," Burton wrote on Instagram when announcing the birth of MF Libations.
