- Tyler Hilton tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that he and his One Tree Hill costar Bethany Joy Lenz reconnected when she was writing her 2024 memoir Dinner for Vampires and talked candidly about the past
- The actor and singer-songwriter says the two reached “a new level of closeness” as they delved into the unexplored feelings they had for each other while working on the hit teen drama, which aired from 2003 to 2012
- “It’s weird to be so much older and discussing that and being like, ‘Oh, no way. This actually meant so much to me. I had no idea,’ ” Hilton says
Tyler Hilton is opening up about how he and his former One Tree Hill costar Bethany Joy Lenz forged a deeper connection thanks to her revealing memoir Dinner for Vampires.
In the book, released in October 2024, Lenz, 44, candidly detailed how she led a double life. While starring in the hit teen drama — which aired from 2003 to 2012 — her personal life was unraveling behind the scenes as she found herself enmeshed in a high-control religious group that she later realized was a cult.
Hilton, 41, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that he and Lenz had an opportunity to reconnect while she was working on the book and talk about that time in their lives — including their unexplored “feelings” for each other.
“We talked a little bit about the past while she was writing the book and then I did some of the audiobook with her,” he says. “And yeah, I think that we’ve kind of gotten to a new level of closeness because we had feelings for each other and we had a whole vibe when we were in our early twenties that she talks about in the book.”
He continues: “And none of that was ever talked about, as it kind of fizzled out. Her family and the cult got in the way of that and without the tools to know how to fully end that the right way, we just kind of both shrugged and walked away.”
During their conversations, they both discovered that they felt much more for each other than they openly acknowledged at the time.
“If I can be bold, I think our romantic feelings and always our friendship meant a lot to us, and neither one of us knew what to do with it,” he explains. “It’s weird to be so much older and discussing that and being like, ‘Oh, no way. This actually meant so much to me. I had no idea.’ And like, ‘Oh, that’s what happened. Why? I had no idea.’ ”
Hilton — who played musician Chris Keller in One Tree Hill — notes that you don’t often get an opportunity to have such honest conversations with “a lot of crushes or loves from the past.”
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“So with [Lenz] writing this book, we’ve gotten to connect in this whole other way that makes me love her as a friend and [also] have so much more respect for her,” the actor and singer-songwriter tells PEOPLE. “So it’s been a nice surprise in our relationship that she had this book and we got to fill in some of the holes that might’ve been there from before and fill in some of what happened [in the past].”
Hilton, who is now married to wife Megan Park and a dad of two, also addressed how his relationship with Lenz was impacted by her involvement in the religious group while performing in Portland in November.
In footage captured in a TikTok video, Hilton can be heard telling the crowd, “Bethany and I weren’t really supposed to be hanging together on the show, but off set we became really good friends and started becoming close.”
He went on to share how the two bonded over their passion for music and began to spend time together outside of work, writing songs. Eventually, they started to “catch feelings for real,” he said.
As their relationship deepened, they would have “beautiful” conversations about religion, and Hilton recalled occasionally getting “cult vibes.”
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“So I was really into her though and I was like, ‘Dude, I’m down with cult, I don’t care about that s—. Yeah, that’s no big deal, I’ve dated tons of girls [in cults], ‘ ” he told the concert audience.
At one point, Hilton recalled, Lenz’s religious group came to one of their concerts and “sussed me out” — and he failed to get their stamp of approval.
“They were like, ‘Yeah, he’s not the vibe.’ And she was like, ‘Yeah the cult said no,’ ” he shared, adding, “I’d never been broken up with by [a] cult before. That was the first time.”
Vampires for Dinner is available now wherever books are sold.
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