Barbara Alyn Woods ‘Didn’t Know’ About One Tree Hill’s Alleged On-Set Harassment Until Years Later

Barbara Alyn Woods revealed she was unaware of the alleged sexual harassment taking place on the One Tree Hill set until years after the show’s end.

“I didn’t know half the stuff. I didn’t know any of the stuff that was going on, on the show, and I wish I had been there,” Woods, 63, shared on the Tuesday, April 8, episode of fellow OTH alum Jana Kramer’s “Whine Down” podcast. “And I’ve already offered many apologies to my costars. I feel like I could have made a difference. Because I like being a sounding board, I have a good ear, and it just broke my heart when I heard that.”

Woods quipped that she wasn’t involved in the drama because she was viewed as “130 years old” compared to the younger female cast members in the eyes of OTH creator Mark Schwahn, though she didn’t mention him by name.

“It didn’t happen to me, so I was just oblivious to everything,” she said. “So, I think that’s the worst part of it, because, honestly, I don’t have anything bad to say while I was on the show. It was such a great experience for me.”

Woods portrayed Deb Scott, the mother of James Lafferty’s Nathan Scott, on OTH throughout the show’s nine-season run from 2003 to 2012. Schwahn, 58, was first accused of sexual harassment in November 2017 by TV writer Audrey Wauchope. Several of OTH’s female cast and crew members claimed Schwahn’s inappropriate on-set behavior was an “open secret” in an open letter of support shortly after.

“Many of us were told, during filming, that coming forward to talk about this culture would result in our show being canceled and hundreds of lovely, qualified, hard-working, and talented people losing their jobs,” the letter read, per Variety. “This is not an appropriate amount of pressure to put on young girls. … The reality is, no space is safe when it has an underlying and infectious cancer. We have worked at taking our power back, making the conventions our own, and relishing in the good memories. But there is more work to be done.” (Schwahn has never publicly addressed the allegations.)

On the podcast, Kramer, 41, told Woods not to “beat yourself up” about being unaware of the behind-the-scenes drama. She also recalled a suspicious text message she once received from Schwahn, without mentioning the executive producer’s name.

“He said, ‘I’m flying you out to New York. You’re going to become a series regular. Can’t wait to celebrate. Maybe I’ll come to your room,’” Kramer alleged. “And I remember calling my boyfriend at the time, going, ‘I need you to get to New York, because I don’t know what to do when he …’ And so, my boyfriend flew to New York for that, to be there.”

Kramer — who played Alex Dupre on OTH — claimed that after Schwahn saw her boyfriend with her, “He went on to someone else in the cast.” The actress also said she has questioned whether she was truly hired on the show for her acting abilities or for other reasons.

“I think that piece kind of wrestled with me a little bit because, would you have hired me if I was married?” she questioned. “Maybe not. Probably not.”

Though Woods thinks she “probably could not have made a difference” if she had known about the alleged on-set harassment, she wishes she could have acted as a “mother figure” to the people affected by it at the time. “When all this came out later, I was in denial,” she told Kramer. “I couldn’t believe it happened because I thought I would have known.”

Schwahn was fired from the E! drama The Royals in the wake of the scandal, and the series remains his most recent writing, directing and producing credit.

Hilarie Burton Morgan opened up about the importance of herself and the OTH cast continuing to speak out about the allegations on an April 2023 episode of the “Drama Queens” podcast, sharing, “Until there’s some kind of change in our industry, I don’t know how we stop [speaking out]. The only reason that we made it out is because we had each other.”