Bethany Joy Lenz Shares Her Favorite Haley and Nathan Moment fromOne Tree Hill(It's a Steamy One!)

Mar. 15, 2025

ForBethany Joy Lenz, there is no Haley without Nathan.

While chatting withCall Her Daddyhost Alex Cooperthis week on her latest podcast episode, Lenz, 43, looked back on her days onOne Tree Hilland her favorite memory of her character, Haley James Scott.

“Most iconic Haley moment? It’s hard because so many of them were withJames Lafferty,” she said of her costar, who played her longtime love interest Nathan Scott on the series.

“You know, that kiss in the rain when Nathan and Haley first get together, and they just have that kiss in the rain,” she said, adding of the off-camera reality, “and that hose with holes in it and freezing cold water … pouring down on us. It was so fun.”

She noted that at the time, “James and I had never kissed before and he was 17 and I was cradle-robbing at that point. And it was just awkward — you’re smashing teeth, and trying … you’re young kids, just like, how do we kiss each other on camera?”

Fans ate it up, however, coining the couples' name “Naley” as the pair navigated ups and downs throughout the series, which ran from 2003 to 2012.

Everett

Elsewhere in the podcast, Lenz said she initially wasn’t even on the show.

“They shot the pilot without me,” she shared. “It was calledRavensat the time. I really wanted to just focus on film, I’d just got off of a soap opera in New York and I wanted to try something different.”

But fate seemingly had other plans.

“It came back around, they said they’re recasting, they’re shooting in two weeks and will you please go screen test for this role?” she recalled of a chat with her team. “And so I did.”

Stars of ‘One Tree Hill’ in 2003.Warner Bros. / Courtesy: Everett

Warner Bros. / Courtesy: Everett

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

By the time she got out a decade later, she had to start over with hardly anything to show for the nearly nine years she spent on the series — and a feeling of regret and shame for notrealizing she was in a cult.

“I don’t think of it as brave,” she says, of why she’s finally opening up. “I think of it as important. Living silently in the suffering I experienced, I don’t know if that helps anyone.” She hopes her book will empower others in similar situations: “I think of this more as the right thing to do.”

source: people.com