One Tree Hill star Hilarie Burton says she received graphic ‘prison mail’ from men about her feet

Hilarie Burton has revealed she regularly received “prison mail” from men regarding her feet during her time on the Noughties teen drama One Tree Hill.

On Monday’s episode (28 March) of Drama Queens, a podcast hosted by Burton and her former One Tree Hill co-stars Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz, the trio discussed the season two episode “Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking”.

In the episode, Burton’s character Peyton Sawyer has sex with her boyfriend Jake Jagielski (Bryan Greenberg).

Burton told her co-hosts that although she had a “big conflict” about the scene, she agreed to do it because the episode’s director Billy Dixon was a “beloved crew member” and “it’s so much harder to say no to someone who you like and respect”.

The actor said that Dixon wanted to start the scene filming their feet and legs rubbing together, which she thought was “way too adult”.

“Also, I had been getting prison mail since I was on MTV,” Burton revealed on the podcast. The actor began her career as an announcer on MTV’s music video show Total Request Live in 2000.

“There was a couple dudes in particular that were like, ‘I’m gonna cut your feet off and put them in my refrigerator,’” she said.

“And so I had a thing about my feet on TV. I would always try to, like, hide my feet because I was just like, ‘I don’t want them to think I’m baiting them,’ you know?”

Burton said she begged the crew not to begin on the shot of her feet in the episode and was assured that it would be blurred in the edit. When the episode aired, however, there was no blurring.

“Back then, it was on film and you just had to trust what was going on on the monitor was what you asked for,” Burton said, while her co-hosts reassured her that the scene was “hot” and “beautiful”.

Dixon did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.