Bethany Joy Lenz and Tyler Hilton backstage at ‘TRL’ on January 25, 2005. Gregory Pace/FilmMagic
Chris Keller and Haley James Scott IRL?! According to Tyler Hilton, he and Bethany Joy Lenz formed a close bond during One Tree Hill but their romantic connection got shut down.
“The book talked a lot about personal stuff and I went through a lot of that with her,” Hilton, 40, said of Lenz, 43, and her memoir, Dinner for Vampires, during his Monday, November 18 concert in Portland, per footage shared via TikTok. “But it was crazy, cause if you guys watched the show, what you may not know is that our characters … 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.”
Hilton, who joined One Tree Hill in season 2, explained that he and Lenz bonded over their shared love of music. After learning that Lenz was a “great musician,” they started to spend more time together outside of the WB drama where they would write songs together.
“We really fell for each other, we started to catch feelings for real,” he told the audience. “We were hanging out together all the time and the producers on the show were like, ‘We should write this into the show.’ So they started having our characters sing together on the show and stuff.”
Hilton told the crowd that he decided to open up about his connection with Lenz since she reveals in her book that Hilton was one of the only cast members to straight up ask her if she was in a cult during her time as part of The Big House Family.
Bethany Joy Lenz and Tyler Hilton attend the CATstravaganza fundraiser on April 21, 2018 in Hollywood, California. Michael Tullberg/Getty Images
“We had so many beautiful, deep conversations about religion and stuff. And every once and a while I would get cult vibes,” Hilton shared on Monday. “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].”
Hilton claimed that Lenz told him if they wanted to date then the group needed to approve of him. So the organization came to see him and Lenz perform together.
“They came out to [our] show in Portland and they sussed me out. And they were like, ‘Yeah, he’s not the vibe.’ And she was like, ‘Yeah the cult said no,’” he said. “I didn’t have an answer for that one cause normally you can tell a girl is there something I can do? But if the cult says no, you’re f—ed. I’d never been broken up with by [a] cult before. That was the first time.”
Despite their breakup nearly “20 years ago,” Hilton and Lenz have remained “great friends.” However, Hilton did write the song “You’ll Ask For Me” about the experience, which ended up being used on One Tree Hill.
Hilton went on to find love with wife Megan Park, whom he wed in 2015. The couple share daughter Winnie, 4, and son Bennett, 4 months. Lenz, for her part, was married to one of the cult leader’s sons for seven years. Their toxic marriage was a major story line in the book. Shortly before they split, they welcomed daughter Rosie in 2011.