“One Tree Hill” actor Tyler Hilton recalled his co-star Bethany Joy Lenz ending their relationship because her cult did not approve of him.
Hilton, who played Chris Keller in the 2000s drama, detailed his sudden breakup from Lenz, who starred as Haley James Scott, after she opened up about her experience as a member of the “Big House Family” in her recently released memoir, “Dinner for Vampires.”
“The book talks about a lot of personal stuff, you know, and I went through a lot of that with her,” Hilton said onstage during a recent concert, per a TikTok video shared Wednesday.
The singer, 40, said he and the actress, 43, “became really good friends” and “started becoming close” while bonding over their love of music during the second season, which was filmed in 2004.
“I started writing [songs] with her and hanging with her, and then, you know, we really fell for each other,” he remembered. “We started to catch feelings for real, and we were hanging out all the time.”
Hilton shared that he and Lenz “were getting closer and closer” before things started to take a turn.
“I started to get the vibe that she was in a cult, and I was like, ‘Um, are you in a cult or like…?’” he said while the crowd laughed. “We had so many beautiful, deep conversations about religion and stuff, and every once in a while I’d just get cult vibes, you know?”
Hilton said with a laugh that he was so “into her” that he convinced himself to be OK with the organization.
“I was like, ‘Dude, I’m down with cults. I don’t care about that s–t. Yeah, that’s no big deal. Dude, tons of girls are with cults!’” he joked.
The indie performer claimed the “Guiding Light” alum eventually told him that the group had to approve of and “suss [him] out.”
“I was like, ‘Oh, OK! Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right. I’ve been through this before,” he recounted while the audience laughed.
Hilton and Lenz then met up with the cult in Portland, Ore., where it was based, while on tour.
“They came out to the show, and they sussed me out,” he alleged. “And they were like, ‘Yeah, he’s not the vibe.’ She was like, ‘Yeah, the cult said no.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, OK, so, huh, all right.’
“Normally you can [ask] a girl, ‘Is there something I can do?’ But if the cult says no, you’re f–ked, you know what I’m saying? And I’d never been broken up with by a cult before. That was the first time actually, so I really was just out of options,” he concluded.
Shortly after her brief romance with her co-star, Lenz married the alleged “Big House Family” leader’s son Michael Galeotti Jr., with whom she welcomed a daughter in 2011.
The actress called the union an “arranged situation” on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast last month, sharing that it ended in 2012 over a lack of emotional and physical connections.